USFL Roundup : Field-Goal Try Fails, So Generals Win With Touchdown, Instead

Holder Rick Partridge picked up a dropped snap on a field-goal attempt and ran nine yards for the winning touchdown at 3:53 of overtime Sunday, giving the New Jersey Generals a 30-24 victory over the stunned Tampa Bay Bandits at Tampa, Fla.

Partridge, the Generals’ punter, mishandled the snap when he put the ball down for a 27-yard field-goal try by Roger Ruzek before an estimated crowd of 32,000. A 49-yard pass play from Doug Flutie to Clarence Collins set up the score.

Herschel Walker, who had his eighth consecutive 100-yard game for the Generals, rushed for 166 yards on 30 carries, including three touchdowns. New Jersey, which also rallied for a 28-24 victory over the Bandits two months ago, improved to 9-5. Tampa Bay is also 9-5.

Houston 41, Arizona 20--Houston quarterback Jim Kelly threw three first-half touchdown passes, two to Clarence Verdin, before leaving the game with a ligament tear in his right knee.

A crowd of 12,690 saw Kelly, the league’s leading passer, crumple to the turf on the final play of the first half after he was sacked for a five-yard loss by Arizona’s Daryl Wilkerson.

Kelly’s injury was diagnosed as a right medial co-lateral ligament tear. He had completed 13 of 18 passes for 258 yards before being replaced by Todd Dillon.

Houston is now 9-5; Arizona is 5-9.

Baltimore 28, San Antonio 10--Chuck Fusina threw three touchdown passes to lead the Stars to a victory at College Park, Md. The crowd of 8,633 was the smallest for a home game in the Stars’ three-year history and nearly 6,000 smaller than the previous low this season.