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Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Yellow Jackets survive in overtime

ATLANTA — Another emotional win under their belts, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets rallied from a second-half deficit to come back and beat ACC foe Wake Forest 30-27.

It marked the second time this season that they had beaten a team this year after going into halftime trailing.

Staving off a charging, upset-minded Demon Deacons team, the Yellow Jackets are able to keep their conference title hopes alive. With a road trip to Duke this week, they have an opportunity to clinch the Coastal Division title and move on to Tampa, Fla., for the ACC championship game on Dec. 5.

Led by quarterback Riley Skinner’s prolific passing attack, the Demon Deacons hung with the 10th-ranked Yellow Jackets all game, answering each Georgia Tech score with one of their own.

Recovering from a concussion suffered last week, Skinner practiced in limited capacity entering the game. That, however, did not stop him from passing for more than 230 yards. Despite that total, the Demon Deacons were held to just 264 yards of total offense.

While Skinner enjoyed a big game against Georgia Tech’s defense, Yellow Jackets B-back Jonathan Dwyer took over for his game, rushing for more than 185 yards, surpassing the career-high he set just last week against Vanderbilt.

The Georgia Tech win was capped by a three-yard touchdown run by quarterback Josh Nesbitt that answered Wake Forest’s 34-yard field goal made at the start of the overtime session.

The score also came one play after quarterback Josh Nesbitt converted a fourth-and-short situation diving successfully for first-down from Wake Forest’s 5-yard line. The Yellow Jackets were 0-for-4 on fourth-downs during the game before the play.

The last time the Yellow Jackets won while trailing after halftime, they beat Florida State, marking the program’s first ever win in Tallahassee.