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Georgia Southern - the nation's leading rushing team - continued doing what it does best, running for over 400 yards and hitting key passes when necessary to knock off the pesky Mountaineers on Thursday night.
The game started with Georgia Southern's Matt Breida doing what he does best: breaking a long run to open the Eagles' scoring. This marks the fourth out of Georgia Southern's five games that Breida has scored the Eagles' first points with a 50+ yard touchdown run. The Eagles never really looked back.
After jumping out to a 17-0 lead, Appalachian State scored to make it 17-7, and then scored a touchdown late in the first half to enter the break trailing only 24-14, but the Mountaineers never could mount a rally to threaten the Eagles in the second half.
The Mountaineers had their chances, driving into the redzone twice in the 3rd quarter, but coming away with zero points. On their first drive of the second half, App State failed to get a first down from a 4th and 4 on the Eagles 9 yard line. After a quick stop, the Mountaineers blocked a Georgia Southern punt, but again failed to score points when Taylor Lamb's pass was intercepted on the 1 yard line with 8:54 to go in the 3rd quarter.
Georgia Southern proceeded to keep the ball for the rest of the quarter and kicked a FG to go up 27-14 on the first play of the 4th quarter. The Mountaineers never really threatened again as the Eagle defense came alive in the final stanza. Georgia Southern QB Kevin Ellison added one more touchdown to take the score to 34-14 in favor of the home team, and that's how the game ended.
Georgia Southern moves to 3-2 (2-0 in the Sun Belt) on the year and continues its push to win the Sun Belt in its first year in the conference. They travel out west to face New Mexico State next Saturday. Meanwhile, the Mountaineers fall to 1-3 (0-1 in the Sun Belt), and will next face South Alabama at home.