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DURHAM, North Carolina (Ticker) -- For the second straight week, Georgia Tech struggled. For the second straight week, quarterback Joe Hamilton came through when it mattered most. Hamilton engineered a four-play, 70-yard drive that was capped by a 19-yard touchdown run by Sean Gregory with 2:56 left as ninth-ranked Georgia Tech kept its Atlantic Coast Conference title hopes alive with a 38-31 victory over Duke. A pair of touchdown scrambles by Duke quarterback Spencer Romine, sandwiched around a 32-yard field goal by teammate Sims Lenhardt put Duke (1-5, 1-2 ACC) on top, 31-28, just under two minutes into the final quarter. A 33-yard field goal by Luke Manget midway through the quarter knotted the score for Georgia Tech (5-1, 3-1). Duke put together a solid drive on the ensuing possession before the Yellow Jackets defense stiffened and forced a punt. Hamilton took over at the Georgia Tech 30 and immediately found Kevin Campbell for 36 yards to the Duke 34. After Gregory ran for a yard, receiver Dez White ran a reverse for 14 yards. Gregory then capped the drive by slicing through the line for the decisive score. Hamilton completed 23-of-34 passes for 324 yards and two touchdowns. He added 18 carries for 59 yards as Georgia Tech rallied for victory in the fourth quarter for the sixth time in 13 games. "We're very fortunate to get a win today," Georgia Tech coach George O'Leary said. "I'm concerned because I don't think we're getting some things out of our football team that we need to be getting." Campbell had 11 receptions for 190 yards just seven days after catching seven passes for 203 yards. Romine finished 25-of-43 for 294 yards and added 43 yards and three touchdowns on 14 carries. "It was a gutsy performance by him again," Duke coach Carl Franks said. "That shoulder went in the ground a few times, and he just kept hanging in there. I'm proud of him. The guy comes to play all the time and it was a gutty performance by him." Georgia Tech, whose lone loss came at top-ranked Florida State, 41-35, was forced into overtime by North Carolina last weekend. Hamilton, one of the favorites for the Heisman Trophy, scored on a six-yard draw in overtime. The Yellow Jackets have won five straight and nine of the last 11 meetings between the teams. Georgia Tech also avoided becoming the first top-10 team since Clemson, in 1989, to lose to Duke. "We didn't play well enough to win that game," Franks added. "We played hard, we showed some improvement on offense. We seem to be making improvement each week there. But all the opportunities were there to have a chance to win the game and we didn't execute." Georgia Tech opened the scoring by taking the opening kickoff and moving 81 yards in nine plays. Hamilton capped the drive with a 25-yard strike to White. A pair of one-yard touchdown runs by Phillip Rogers extended the Yellow Jackets lead to 21-0 early in the second quarter but Romine rallied the Blue Devils. He found Scottie Montgomery with a seven-yard scoring toss with 9:38 left in the half then scored from one yard out just over four minutes later. Hamilton extended the Yellow Jackets lead to 28-14 with 41 seconds left in the half by finding Jon Muyres with a 14-yard touchdown toss. "I'm annoyed that we don't line up and have a killer instinct to put people away when you have a chance to do it," O'Leary said. When it's 21-0, that's when you really need to bow up and get things done. ... We just keep shooting ourselves in the foot and that has to stop because it has been going on for three weeks, and you just can't keep doing that and getting wins. We've been lucky to get some wins. It's not the way we want to be playing football right now." Georgia Tech leads the all-time series 37-29-1 and today's contest marked just the third time in 14 meetings that the game has been decided by less than 10 points.
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