Box Score / Event Stats

Football Trounces Fort Valley State 69-0

Blazers enjoy record-setting victory

FORT VALLEY, Ga. - Valdosta State enjoyed a record-setting victory as the Blazers defeated Fort Valley State 69-0 Saturday evening at Wildcat Stadium.

The 69-point victory marked the largest margin of victory in VSU history while the 69 points were just one shy of the school record of 70, set in a 70-12 win over Delta State in 2001. The shutout marked the 17th time in school history, and the first time since 2003, that the Blazers blanked an opponent.

Valdosta State (2-0) opened the scoring on its first drive of the game. After forcing an FVSU punt, the Blazers took over at their own 45-yard line and marched to the FVSU 12 before being backed up ten yards by a holding penalty. A Willie Copeland scramble picked up five yards, setting up a 35-yard successful field goal attempt by Zac Whilliams.

The Blazers upped their lead to 10-0 on their second drive on an eight-yard touchdown run by Copeland. The drive took just 63 seconds as VSU took over on a punt and marched 42 yards on five plays.

The VSU defense got in on the scoring just before the end of the first quarter as the Blazer special teams unit used a Steven Wright punt to pin the Wildcats (2-1) on their own one-yard line. On the first play from scrimmage, Michael Cullen burst through the line and drug down FVSU running back Richard Willis for a safety.

Cedric Jones garnered his first two touchdowns of the year on VSU's next two drives. The first came when he caught a second-and-six screen pass and split a pair of Fort Valley State defenders to race 54 yards for the score.

After the VSU defense once again held, the Blazers marched 72 yards on 11 plays to up its lead to 26-0. Jones capped off the drive with a 27-yard touchdown pass, on which he broke two tackles before out-running the rest of the Wildcat defense to the end zone.

The Blazer defense closed out the scoring with a fumble recovery for a touchdown with 10 seconds remaining in the half. On a third and 14 play, Travis Harrison sacked FVSU quarterback Nate Samas, stripping the ball in the process. The ball bounded into the end zone, where it was pounced on by VSU's Melvin Black to give the Blazers a 33-0 halftime lead.

VSU spent little time in finding the end zone in the third quarter as it marched 78 yards on seven plays. Copeland threw his third touchdown of the game as he found fullback Donnie Powell from four yards out for the score with 11:47 remaining in the quarter.

Maurice Leggett picked off a pass and returned it 55 yard for a touchdown with 5:37 to go in the quarter and Josh Brown sacked Wildcat quarterback Zedrick West 12 seconds later to up the VSU lead to 48-0 before Michael Terry scored from four yards out to cap off a nine-play, 60-yard drive with 31 seconds remaining in the quarter.

Russ Callaway added a five-yard touchdown run and Ronnye Nelson scored from 10 yards out on a run with 1:38 to go to cap off the scoring in the game.

Jones led the Blazers with eight catches and 139 yards including seven receptions and 125 yards in the first half. Copeland completed 20-of-28 passes for 249 yards and three touchdowns while Terry picked up 43 yards on six carries.

Larry Dean and Cullen led the defense with eight tackles each, with Dean adding a pass broken up and a quarterback hurry.

Valdosta State takes next Saturday off before returning to action Saturday, September 22 when it travels to Russellville, Ark. to open Gulf South Conference play against Arkansas Tech at 4:00 p.m. The game will be televised as part of the "GSC TV Live" Package on CSS and locally in the Valdosta area on Mediacom Channel 99.

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