Wake Forest vs Towson Highlights

Our Deacs moved on to 2-0 yesterday after defeating the Towson Tigers 51-20. Let’s jump right into the highlights.

Wake Forest struck first, with Sam Hartman finding Alex Bachman in the corner of the end-zone for this amazing one-handed touchdown grab.

This one even caught the eye of SportsCenter, who thought the play was worthy of the Top 10.

The Tigers answered quickly, as quarterback Tom Flacco found Sam Gallahan in the back of the end-zone to cap an 8 play, 68 yard drive to tie the game at 7 apiece.

This was a high scoring affair early on, and the Deacs got the ball back and marched right down the field, going 62 yards in 3 plays to regain the lead at 14-7. The Deacs were aided on this drive by a 30 yard roughing the passer, dead ball late hit after the play penalty combo. This time, Hartman found Greg Dortch in the corner for another spectacular one-handed catch.

Hartman finished the game 17-27 for 242 yards and 2 touchdowns. He did turn the ball over a couple of times, once on an interception on the next Wake Forest drive of the game.

The tipped pass floated high into the air, allowing Mantriel Reaves to dive and get under the ball to force the turnover. The Tigers took over at the Wake 23 and scored just 5 plays later to tie the game at 14.

The Deacs had a lot of trouble containing Flacco, and he was able to keep the play alive just long enough to find Shane Simpson open in the end-zone for 6.

The Wake Forest offense would once again answer quickly, this time with a 7 play, 73 yard drive that took just a little over 2 minutes. The offense was pretty unstoppable in this one, punting just one time the whole game if I remember correctly.

Hartman kept the ball here on the read and took off for a 14-yard touchdown run to take the lead 21-14. The Deacs would keep the lead for the remainder of the game.

The very next play from scrimmage, Flacco would air one out deep, overthrowing his intended target, allowing Essang Bassey to come up with the interception for the Deacs.

This would set up a Nick Sciba field goal to give Wake Forest a 24-14 lead.

Then Greg Dortch took over the game. After forcing Towson to punt on their next possession, the red-shirt sophomore took the punt 70 yards to the end-zone to give Wake a 31-14 lead.

Then, after a 4th down stop by the Deacon defense and a punt from the offense, Dortch would do the same thing again! This time Dortch would take it 60 yards to the house, making him the first Wake Forest player since 1927 to return 2 punts for touchdowns in the same game.

Dortch finished the game with 7 catches for 94 yards and a TD, 3 kick returns for 85 yards, and 3 punt returns for 131 yards and 2 TDs. Add that all up and you get 310 all purpose yards, making the Human Dortch the first player in Wake Forest history with 4 straight games of 200+ all purpose yards. It was also the 3rd best all purpose yards for a Wake player ever.

The Tigers would score their final points of the game in the final seconds of the first half, with Flacco making another elite throw to Shane Leatherbury in the end-zone for the 18 yard score.

This he Tigers went for 2 for some reason, but were unable to convert, giving the Deacs a comfortable 38-20 lead at the half.

After a lengthy weather delay, Wake Forest would score the final touchdown of the game early in the 4th quarter on a drive that was basically just Cade Carney running up the middle. In the 11 play, 91 yard drive, Carney ran the ball 9 times, including this 2 yard touchdown run.

The Deacs went up 48-20, and that would be the end of the game for the first team. This gave us our first look at Christian Beal-Smith later in the game, and he did not disappoint. He carried the ball 6 times for 68 yards, including this 52 yard burst.

Hopefully, we will be able to see a lot more of that in the future. That run set up another Sciba field goal (who was a perfect 3-3 on the day), and the Deacs would run out the clock to win the game 51-20 to move to 2-0.

All in all, the offense looked pretty unstoppable, and the defense did eventually settle in and stop Towson from putting up points.

What was your favorite play from the game? Let us know!