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NCAA Division I-AA Championship : Northeast Louisiana Rallies in Fourth Quarter, 43-42

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Associated Press

Stan Humphries passed for three touchdowns and ran for another as Northeast Louisiana came from behind to defeat Marshall, 43-42, for the NCAA Division I-AA championship Saturday night.

Trailing 42-28, Humphries rallied the Indians, of the Southland Conference, by passing 10 yards to Kenneth Johnson for a touchdown early in the final quarter and following with a two-point conversion pass to Jerry Harris. He then scored on a three-yard touchdown run around right end with 7:19 left, and Teddy Garcia kicked the decisive extra point.

Humphries finished with 26 completions in 43 attempts for 436 yards.

The Indians (13-2) needed Humphries’ heroics to counter the performance of Marshall’s Tony Petersen, who was 28 of 54 for 474 yards and a championship record-tying four touchdown passes, including two to Keith Baxter. He threw three interceptions.

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Petersen equaled the record for touchdown passes set in 1985 by Tracy Ham in Georgia Southern’s 44-42 victory over Furman. Both quarterbacks broke Ham’s record of 419 passing yards, set in the same game.

The Thundering Herd, of the Southern Conference, got three touchdown passes from Petersen during a 29-7 third-quarter outburst. He completed scoring passes of 9 yards to Mike Barber, 29 yards to Baxter and 17 yards to Bruce Hammond.

After Northeast Louisiana took the lead, the Thundering Herd (10-5) had two chances to go ahead, but Ronald Darby fumbled deep in Northeast Louisiana territory with 3:00 left, and Petersen’s pass was intercepted by Perry Harper with 56 seconds left.

Humphries completed scoring passes of 5 and 9 yards to Mike Manzullo and Chris Jones, in addition to the one to Johnson.

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