RENO — Senior quarterback Ty Gangi tossed four touchdown passes — two each to sophomores Elijah Cooks and McLane Mannix — as the Blue team roared back for a 35-34 win over the Silver in the Nevada football team’s annual Silver and Blue Spring Game on Saturday at Mackay Stadium.
Gangi, the top returning passer in the Mountain West, completed 23-of-34 for 263 yards in the scrimmage to lead the first-string to the win. The format called for the Wolf Pack’s first string to make up the Blue team and all others competing for the Silver, with the latter staked to a 27-0 lead.
Mannix, a freshman All-America in 2017, got the Blue team on the board early, catching a pair of touchdown passes from Gangi. The first score was from six yards out and then, after a Berdale Robins interception, Mannix hauled in an 18-yarder for another score that cut the deficit to 27-14.
The Blue defense, which did not allow a Silver offensive score all day, then forced two more punts before an Ahki Muhammad interception set up another score. This one was Gangi finding Cooks, who spent half of the basketball season competing for the nationally ranked Wolf Pack team before re-joining football for the spring, from 12 yards out to give Blue the lead at 28-27.
But the Silver came back as local product Anthony Hankins picked off Gangi and returned it 25 yards for a touchdown just before halftime to make it 34-28, Silver.
The second half was played with a running block and Kelton Moore capped the scoring with the four-yard plunge in the fourth quarter for the go-ahead touchdown for the Blue. Moore finished with 71 yards on 11 carries.
The game capped the Wolf Pack’s spring session and the weekend included a large football alumni gathering, including Joel Bitonio, a starting guard for the Cleveland Browns, former NFL linebacker James-Michael Johnson, CFL quarterback Cody Fajardo, and the 33rd overall pick in this week’s NFL Draft, lineman Austin Corbett, among dozens of others.
