The Baltimore Ravens defeated the error-prone Houston Texans 20-13 in the NFL divisional playoffs on Sunday to earn a date with the top-seeded New England Patriots in next week’s AFC Championship game.
Joe Flacco completed 14 of 27 passes for 176 yards and two touchdowns for the Ravens, who took advantage of four Houston turnovers to move within one victory of a Super Bowl berth.
“The four turnovers were huge,” Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said. “That’s the difference in football games, especially at this time of year. The fact that we capitalized on turnovers was probably the key to the game.”
Photo: Reuters
Houston’s rookie quarterback T.J. Yates completed 17 of 35 passes for 184 yards, but tossed three costly interceptions. Throw in a muffed punt by Jacoby Jones that gave the Ravens the ball at the Texans’ two and you have a formula for failure.
“We had a couple of chances to go ahead, but we just hurt ourselves with turnovers,” Yates said. “We gave them the ball in great places to score and they did. Without those turnovers, we had a great chance to win.”
Baltimore’s eight-time Pro Bowl safety Ed Reed tipped his hat to Yates, who made the most of his shot after starting quarterback Matt Schaub and backup Matt Leinart were lost to injury during the regular season.
“I saw a guy that grew up within a couple weeks time,” said Reed, who had one interception, while cornerback Ladarius Webb had two. “Honestly, he made some throws and then they gave themselves a chance to win right there at the end. You can’t ask for anything more than that against a defense like ours and being a young quarterback.”
With the Ravens clinging to a 17-13 lead, Billy Cundiff booted a 44-yard field goal with 2 minutes, 52 seconds left in regulation to hike the lead to seven points.
Houston (11-7), hoping to extend their first-ever foray into the post-season, drove to the Baltimore 43 with 20 seconds left, but they surrendered the ball on downs.
“We did the one thing we couldn’t do to come in here and win,” Texans coach Gary Kubiak said. “You have four turnovers and you don’t give yourself a chance. Right now, with our football team, if we don’t turn the ball over, we are pretty tough to beat.”
Ray Rice, who led all running backs this season with 2,068 yards from scrimmage, rushed for just 60 yards on 21 attempts.
Houston running back Arian Foster provided the offensive fireworks with 132 yards on 27 carries and a touchdown as the Texans outgained the Ravens 315-227 in total yards.
The Ravens held a 17-13 lead at the half despite 95 yards rushing and a score on 15 carries by Foster, who had an easy time slicing through the NFL’s second-ranked rushing defense.
Houston’s Neil Rackers kicked a 40-yard field goal on the game’s opening drive, but the Ravens scored the next 17 points by the end of the first quarter on Flacco scoring strikes to Kris Wilson and Anquan Boldin, and a 48-yard field goal by Cundiff.
A 33-yard field goal by Rackers and a one-yard score off right tackle by Foster late in the second period trimmed the Ravens’ lead to just four points at intermission.
“We came in at halftime knowing we had a great chance to win,” Yates said. “Our offensive line did a great job protecting me and we were able to run the ball well, but turnovers killed our opportunity to win and that’s what hurts now.”
The Ravens now hit the road for Sunday’s game against the Patriots in a matchup of division winners that will determine who represents the AFC in the Super Bowl.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier