Mountaineers beat Maryland in OT



The 19-16 win was West Virginia's first victory over the Terps in five years.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- Rasheed Marshall has struggled throughout his career against Maryland. That didn't change Saturday -- until it mattered most.
Marshall threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Chris Henry in overtime to lift No. 7 West Virginia to a 19-16 victory over No. 21 Maryland.
West Virginia moved to 3-0 for the first time since 1996.
"People say we should not be a Top 10 team because the Big East is a weak conference," Marshall said. "Well, the Big East is not this team."
With John Denver's "Country Roads" playing over the stadium loudspeakers, the Mountaineer players stayed on the field for several minutes to celebrate their first win over Maryland in five tries.
Gorilla off back
"It wasn't a monkey on our back," West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said. "It was like a big gorilla."
Maryland (2-1) suffered its first loss to the Mountaineers under coach Ralph Friedgen.
"They made one more play than we did, and that cost us the game," Friedgen said.
Marshall was coming off four TD passes against UCF last week, but had his fourth straight subpar effort against Maryland. He went 10-of-20 for 132 yards. His TD pass matched the total of his three previous games against the Terps.
The Terps faced a fourth-and-short in the first overtime possession, but played it safe and sent out kicker Nick Novak.
"I was tempted to go for it on that fourth down," Friedgen said. "If you make it, you're a wise man. If you don't, you're not so wise."
After Novak kicked a 33-yarder to make it 16-13, Marshall had a pair of 5-yard runs before West Virginia was faced with a critical third down.
The team went to the line without calling a play because Rodriguez first wanted to see Maryland's scheme.
"You had our best wideout against their best DB, and they won a lot of those battles," Rodriguez said. "But we won the one at the end."
Marshall threw a dart to Henry on a slant pattern over the middle for the winner.
He's back
Kay-Jay Harris, who ran for a Big East-record 337 yards in West Virginia's opener but missed last week's game with a sore hamstring, rushed for 142 yards and one score.
In sophomore Joel Statham's first road start at quarterback, Maryland couldn't generate the type of offense it did in three previous blowout wins over West Virginia. Statham was 9-of-20 for 108 yards with one TD pass and three interceptions for Maryland.
"We were lucky to be as close as we were," Statham said.
Novak, the Atlantic Coast Conference's career scoring leader, missed a 49-yard field goal wide left with 1:15 remaining in the fourth quarter, and Maryland's Kevin Eli blocked Brad Cooper's 39-yard attempt with five seconds to go to force overtime.
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