In an extremely hard fought and physical contest today in Winston-Salem, Wake Forest defeated Appalachian St. 11-3. App. St. set the tone in the first 5 minutes of the match with hard runs from their #5 and #8, and struck first with a penalty goal from their fullback. Wake turned the momentum in their favor ten minutes into the half and had the bulk of possession and territory throught the remainder of the first stanza. The only scoring Wake could muster, however, was a nicely taken drop goal from flyhalf Tyler Eure. After controlling most of the match in the first half, Wake was confident as the second half began, but soon found themselves on their heels as a rejuvenated App. St. side continually pressured the Wake tryline. Wake's defense held firm, however, and repeatedly repelled the App. St. attacks. At one point the App. St. forwards drove a maul into the tryzone and looked to have possibly touched down, but the referee ruled that the ball was held up and Wake dodged a bullet. Wake struggled to get into an offensive rythym, but did have a few good breaks from their backline. With 18 minutes left in the contest and the score still deadlocked at 3, Wake caught another break when ASU's NCRU All-Star flyhalf was yellow-carded. Wake took advantage of the 15 v. 14 situation when minutes later fullback Critter Commins fielded a kick around midfield, beat several App. St. defenders and then offloaded to freshman prop Matt Storck who took the ball in to give Wake an 8-3 lead. Eure was no good on the conversion, but minutes later slotted a penalty goal to give Wake an 11-3 lead. With their flyhalf now back on the pitch, App. St. pressured hard to cut into the defecit, but was unable to do so and the final whitsle blew with Wake victorious and moving to 2-0 in their first ever Division II campaign.
Wake is in action again next Saturday against ECU, who is also 2-0 in league play, having beaten NC St. 43-32 and UNC-W 44-0.
