jjohnson@heraldsun.com
HAMPTON, Va. -- No one could blame N.C. Central coach Mose Rison if he wonders what it feels like to win a season opener after the Eagles lost their third in a row on Saturday against Hampton.
NCCU lost to the Pirates 31-24 on Saturday night at Armstrong Stadium in the first meeting between the teams since 1992.
Hampton's LaMarcus Coker scored on a 25-yard run with 1:28 left in the game two plays after N.C. Central fouled up a punt attempt deep in its end of the field. Leading 24-23, the Eagles appeared to put the game away moments before when quarterback Michael Johnson hit Andrew Jones on a 57-yard catch and run for a touchdown. The play was called back because of holding, and NCCU only moved backwards from there.
Next came a delay of game penalty. Then the Eagles had to burn a timeout, and a snap infraction on center James Frye later pushed the ball back to the NCCU 27. The Eagles were unable to convert on third-and-extra-long.
On the punt attempt, Brian Haslesberger barely fielded a low snap, and when he tried to kick it under pressure, the ball ended up going out of bounds at the NCCU 26. From there, Hampton ran two plays, getting the game-winning score on Coker's run around the left side.
"We had all kinds of penalties against us," said Rison, whose team was penalized 13 times for a total of 104 yards. "Every flag that went down was against us. We did it to ourselves.
"If they don't call that play back, it is an eight-point game in our favor and the worst we can do then is a tie and go to overtime."
But that's not how it turned out, and the Eagles were left wondering how many other plays could have affected the outcome of the game.
"You can't win if you don't execute the small time," NCCU linebacker Donald Laster said. "There were some first-game kinks, but everybody has those. We just had more."
Johnson threw a pair of touchdown passes and ran for another to lead the Eagles' offense. He finished 9-of-21 for 123 yards. But he did have two interceptions. NCCU finished with 284 yards of total offense, compared to 226 for Hampton.
Johnson's scoring passes gave the Eagles the first points in each half, and his 11-yard scramble around the right side put the Eagles ahead 24-23 with just over 11 minutes to go in the game. The Eagles had been down 23-14.
Johnson said coming back to take the lead was big but losing the game was tough.
"It hurts real bad," Johnson said. " It's the worst feeling in the world. It went from knowing you had the game won to losing."
Backup quarterback Keon Williams had to spell Johnson for two series in the third quarter because of leg cramps. Rison said he was pleased with Williams' play and that he knows he has two really good quarterbacks.
"[Williams'] first series, we were real conservative," Rison said. "But the second time he went out there, he looked like a real veteran."
Williams and Johnson were locked into a battle for the starting job until Johnson nudged ahead in the final week of summer camp.
N.C. Central also lost a fumble to finish with three turnovers, while Hampton had two.
Rison said thee mistakes his team made were correctable, and he expected better play next Saturday when the Eagles travel to Liberty.
"This is a completely different team," Rison said of his players. "This is not the same team that lost last year. We're a younger team but we're a better team. We're just going to have to grow up from this one."
