CARROLLTON, Ga. - The West Georgia Wolves football team ground out a 35-24 Gulf South Conference win over the Chowan Hawks on Saturday night at Ra-Lin Field.

The Wolves (4-2, 3-1 GSC) used a late touchdown to go up two scores and an interception in the game's final minutes sealed the victory over the winless Hawks (0-7, 0-5 GSC) for head coach David Dean and the Wolves. 

"That's the way Chowan has played all year long, they're playing good football, despite what their record says," said Dean. "You can tell when they get down, they don't panic and they keep fighting. Even though they are winless coming in, they're a better winless football team than a lot of teams in the country."

For the night, West Georgia had 368 yards of offense while the Hawks had 350, with 303 of those coming via the pass. The Wolves, however, never trailed in the game.

West Georgia's first lead came after the defense forced a three-and-out and the Wolves got the ball in good field position thanks to a 17-yard punt return from Wesley Kennedy III. It set up a 28-yard drive that Kennedy finished off himself with a one-yard touchdown run to make it a 7-0 game.

Chowan would respond with a scoring drive of their own to make it 7-7, and West Georgia would go back up at the seven-minute mark of the second quarter as Cameron Brown found Mykel Tubes for a 12-yard touchdown strike. Once again, however, the Hawks fought back, answering with an 83-yard scoring drive to tie things up at 14-14.

On the ensuing kickoff, Kennedy would return the kickoff to the end zone, but a penalty would negate it, but Brown erased the memory quick as on the first play of the drive, he scampered 88 yards untouched for the go-ahead score with 3:14 to play in the half.

With the clock running down in the second quarter, the Wolves got a big special teams play from Jalon Miller as he blocked a Hawks' field goal attempt to preserve the halftime lead.

"That blocked field goal was big, and as it turned out at the end of the game, it was really big," Dean said of the special teams play, "And yeah, our return game is coming around and we're making some blocks and being able to flip the field on some punt returns and getting good field position on kickoffs."

Miller's blocked field goal was the Wolves' first blocked field goal since 2018.

Chowan got the first points of the second half, but it wasn't until late as the Hawks kicked a 27-yard field goal to cut the UWG lead to 21-17 with 1:42 left in the third.

Rajaez Mosley, who had 80 of his 86 rushing yards in the second half, got going on the next drive, capping it off with a 21-yard touchdown rush to stretch the lead to 28-17.

Once again, the Hawks responded with a scoring drive to make it a four-point game, as the Hawks connected on a 25-yard pass from Rashad McKee to Tyree Holloway to make it 28-24.

The Hawks would get the ball once more with the four-point margin, but a big defensive three-and-out with 6:43 left gave the Wolves the ball back, and UWG capitalized by driving 58 yards and finding points on a 19-yard pass from Brown to E'Shawn Mayes to put the game out of reach. Jibrahn Claude put the final nail in the coffin with his interception with just 1:35 remaining.

Brown finished with 102 yards rushing, the one score, and 123 yards passing with two touchdowns. His top target was Terrill Cole, who became West Georgia's seventh player in program history to eclipse the 1,500 career receiving yard mark, finishing the game with 36 yards on three catches.

"Terrill is just a solid player. He just goes about his business, he doesn't talk much and he's not real flashy," said Dean, "He's a guy we can rely on a good bit. You can tell in crunch times, that's who the quarterbacks are looking for."

On the ground, UWG got the 102 from Brown, 86 from Mosley, and 45 from Kennedy and all three had touchdowns.

Defensively, the Wolves were led by Deontae Overstreet with eight tackles while Keondre Williams had seven including a sack and 2.5 tackles for loss.

The Wolves now set their sights on North Greenville next week and Homecoming at the University of West Georgia. Kickoff next Saturday, October 21 is set for 6 p.m.