Ravens clinch Super Bowl spot

The Baltimore Ravens will face the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas in Super Bowl XLV after coming from behind to defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers on a snowy Pennsylvanian night. The Ravens should relish being the away team in a neutral fixture after their third road victory of the playoffs.

Pittsburgh started the games first drive and promptly swatted aside the vaunted Baltimore D as they marched down the field in just seven minutes, taking the lead when Mewelde Moore punched through to score untouched from two yards. The Ravens couldn't answer back as the offence struggled to gain any momentum in the first half and it was Pittsburgh who scored again, when Reed powered over the FG from 43 yds. The Ravens managed to regiter a score just before the half as Shayne Graham scored a FG from 17yds to make the half time score 10 - 7 Pittsburgh.

The Ravens came out for the 2nd half needing inspiration, and found it from an unlikely source, when back up CB Chris Carr intercepted Roethlisbergers pass and romped all the way for the TD from 52yds. The defensive TD was the catalyst that brough the offence to life as The Ravens suddenly started to find holes in The Steelers defence. Ray Rice, who had had a modest first half, suddenly found the extra half yard of pace, whilst QB Joe Flacco started to find his recievers in the open.

Super sub Donnald Brown got The Ravens in front as he barged his way over fom six yard, as he came on for Rice, who had carried the Ravens up the field on an 80 yard drive. Ray Lewis and his defensive teamates did their bit to aid The Ravens cause as they stalled The Steelers attack with some punnishing defence. After driving Roethlisberger to the ground with a punnishing sack from Haloti Ngata, The Steelers were forced to punt from their own 30 with 6 minutes left to play. The Steelers never touched the ball again as Rice pounded the line time and again, finnaly breaking through to score from 16yds out, to sed the travelling Ravens fans into wild celebrations as they booked their place Super Bowl XLV.

NFL Scoreboard - Baltimore Ravens () at Pittsburgh Steelers ()

January 23, 2011 1 2 3 4 F Baltimore Ravens 0 3 7 14 24 Pittsburgh Steelers 7 3 0 0 10 Top Performers Baltimore Ravens - Stats J Flacco 13/23 128yds R Rice 81yds 3.2avg 1TD Pittsburgh Steelers - Stats B Roethlisberger 22/30 185yds 1int L Foote 8tkl	Team Stats Comparison BAL PIT First Downs 13 9 3rd Down Efficiency 4/11 5/14 4th Down Efficiency 0/0 0/1 Total Yards 290 307 Passing Yards 128 175 Rushing Yards 94 41 Penalties-Penalty Yards 0/0 1/5 Turnovers 0 1 Time of Possession 30:01 29:59
Scoring Summary First Quarter BAL PIT PIT 08:56 M Moore 2yd run (J Reed kick) 0 7 Second Quarter BAL PIT PIT 10:11 J Reed 43yd FG 0 10 BAL 00:35 S Graham 17yd FG 3 10 Third Quarter BAL PIT BAL 05:52 C Carr ret Int 52yds (S Graham kick) 10 10 Fourth Quarter BAL PIT BAL 13:29 D Brown 6yd run (S Graham kick) 17 10 BAL 01:43 R Rice 16yd run (S Graham kick) 24 10
Baltimore Ravens Passing C/ATT YDS TD INT J Flacco 13/23 128 0 0 Rushing ATT YDS AVG TD R Rice 25 81 3.2 1 D Brown 5 17 3.4 1 Receiving REC YDS AVG TD D Stallworth 4 54 13.5 0 D Mason 3 17 5.6 0 T Heap 3 26 8.6 0 Defense TKL SACK INT TD K Gregg 5 0 0 0 E Reed 5 0 0 0 R Lewis 5 0 0 0 H Ngata 3 1 0 0 T Pryce 1 1 0 0 C Carr 1 0 1 0 Kicking FGM/A XPM/A PTS LONG S Graham 1/1 3/3 6 17 Pittsburgh Steelers Passing C/ATT YDS TD INT B Roethlisberger 22/30 185 0 1 Rushing ATT YDS AVG TD R Mendenhall 16 35 2.1 0 M Moore 5 6 1.2 1 Receiving REC YDS AVG TD A Randle El 6 39 6.5 0 H Ward 5 29 5.8 0 R Mendenhall 4 27 6.7 0 Defense TKL SACK INT TD L Foote 8 0 0 0 L Timmons 7 0 0 0 B McFadden 4 0 0 0 Kicking FGM/A XPM/A PTS LONG J Reed 1/1 1/1 4 43

OperationSports.com