Sept. 15, 2007

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Audio Clips

Quentin Cotton Quotes  | Dwayne Harris Quotes  | Marcus Hands  | Skip Holtz  | Chris Johnson  | Linval Joseph  | Patrick Pinkney

GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Southern Mississippi's Jeremy Young scored the second of his two 1-yard touchdown runs with 32 seconds left Saturday night to lead Southern Mississippi to a 28-21 victory over East Carolina in the Conference USA opener.

Young's score helped the Golden Eagles (2-1, 1-0 Conference USA) overcome a third-quarter rally which helped East Carolina (1-2, 0-1 Conference USA) erase a 14-0 deficit to take a 21-14 lead.

Young completed 18 of 28 passes for 237 yards and a touchdown. He was intercepted once.

The Pirates scored on their opening possession of the third quarter when quarterback Patrick Pinkney connected with Dwayne Harris for a 20-yard touchdown reception.

Linebacker Quentin Cotton intercepted a Young pass on Southern Mississippi's ensuing possession and returned it to the 1-yard line. Dominique Lindsay ran it two plays later in from a yard out to tie the game at 14.

After forcing a three-and-out on the next Golden Eagle possession, ECU took the lead on a six-yard touchdown pass from Pinkney to Chris Johnson with 2:34 left in the period.

Southern Mississippi charged back with a pair of 80-yard scoring drives which ended each time with Young scoring. The second march took 6 minutes, 8 seconds, leaving East Carolina little time to tie the score again.

The Pirates could only reach the Southern Mississippi 44 as time ran out.

Damion Fletcher ran for 111 yards and a score for the Golden Eagles.

Pinkney threw for 165 of his 203 yards in the second half, and completed 20 of 33 passes.