BASKETBALL

Basketball Team Wins Five Straight After Faltering Start; Yale Ends Hockey Team's Four-Year Undefeated Streak

IN THE MOST rousing athletic contest seen in Hanover since the Cornell Fifth Down game, Dartmouth outscored, outspeeded, outlasted, and above all outfought a highly favored Army basketball team to win 55-53. Before a sellout crowd, which came more to see the great Glenn Davis and his fellow football luminaries in action than to see a close basketball game, an underdog Dartmouth quintet came from behind in a thrillpacked second half to build up a commanding lead over an aggressive and skillful Army aggregation which almost caught up with them in the waning seconds of the game. The clients, on the verge of hysterics throughout the entire second half, were on their feet almost continuously in the final moments, with time running out and Army apparently about to run in. But they didn't quite make it.

The Green warriors started off as though they had never heard of Glenn Davis and Company, and subjected the famed Army gladiators to a terrific manhandling in the early moments of the game, building up a lead of 11-4 before the latter were able to get going. Get going they did, however, to such purpose that at half time the Army was well in front and it looked as though their superior reserve strength, liberally sprinkled with burly football characters, would run the smaller Dartmouth boys right off the floor. The men in Green, however, uncorked a terrific rally in the second stanza which they managed to hold despite the frantic efforts of the Point to pass them.

It would, be difficult to single out any particular Dartmouth player, but perhaps the work of Chip Coleman at guard was as decisive as that of anyone else, particularly in the second half when the chips (no pun intended) were down and he slipped through the Army defense time and again to score his six baskets. The actual high scorer for Dartmouth was Boyd McCaslin, with six baskets and three free throws for a total of 15 points, followed by Coleman with 13, Campbell with 12, and Heddy with 8. Captain Bob Myers played a whale of a floor game, where his height enabled him to take the rebounds, but he could not seem to connect with the basket. Time and again his shots went just a touch wide, with the result that he ended the evening with only 7 points. However, the final result was eminently satisfactory, with one of the most stirring victories in recent memory. And now, after chronicling the events of the night of January 19, we may return to more mundane considerations and recapitulate the season up to that point.

STAND SECOND IN LEAGUE

After an uncertain start, signalized by dropping the first league game to Penn, winning the next one from Princeton, and then dropping two more (non-league) games over the Christmas holidays, the Green put on a burst of steam and is now currently (January 20) in second place and breathing hot on the neck of Cornell in first place in the Ivy League. We have already told you about the Penn and Princeton encounters. The Christmas trip was marked by a loss in the Boston Garden to Holy Cross by the decisive margin of 60-44 and by a less complete debacle at the hands of Yale 40-37. After the return to Hanover after Christmas, the Green bounced back in the winning column against Ft. Devens by the score of 54-36. That brings us up to the return to the League wars against Penn on January 5, which we propose to outline in somewhat more detail than our purposely sketchy coverage of the above spotty performances. (Yale, by the way, is still out of the league, which is unfortunate from their point of view, since they have had the best teams in their history during the last couple of years when unaffiliated with the rest of the Ivy aggregations.)

Anyhow, in a rousing and rampaging finish, Dartmouth nosed out Pennsylvania, defending champion, in their second encounter by the score of 46 to 45. There is always a considerable modicum of satisfaction deriving from such close encounters and certainly the last drop of drama was squeezed from this performance, which was highlighted by the foul shot of guard George Heddy with 44 seconds to go to provide the winning margin. The deadlock existing at that time represented the sixth time during the game that the score was tied. Dartmouth was ahead consistently throughout the game, with the halftime score 27-25, but the margin was always too close for comfort right up to and including the closing whistle.

The star and high scorer of the evening was big Bob Myers, Dartmouth captain, who notched 18 markers, while holding his star Penn opposite number to a comparatively miserly total. Myers was particularly devastating during the first half, in which he scored 12 of his 18 points and before he became inhibited by the four fouls hanging over his head later in the contest. Chip Coleman was the next high scorer for the Green with 11 points from his guard position, while forward Paul Campbell negotiated 9 points. Since the burden of scoring evolves largely about Captain Myers, this is not one of the most high-powered aggregations in Dartmouth basketball history. If both forwards could be counted on to tally with any consistency, the club would be in. But in this case against Penn, everything came out all right anyway.

The following week, the Indians extended their abbreviated winning streak by taking the measure of the Quonset Naval Air Station by the score of 58-42. This game was marked by the return to the local boards of Ed Leede, who played so gallantly as a freshman for Dartmouth last winter and has been burning up the neighborhood courts this winter for the Quonset organization. If by some happy magic Leede could put on a Dartmouth uniform for the rest of the season, the boys in Green would be in, as far as the league championship is concerned. He would provide the punch which the current forwards lack. Bob Myers had himself a field day in this game' by tallying 22 points and was ably abetted by Bildner, Campbell, and Coleman of the Green. But we certainly could,use Leede.

On January 12, the team continued to celebrate its renaissance by decisively defeating Columbia on their own floor 'by the score of 47-35. Columbia has always been formidable on their band-box court and many of the great teams of recent years have been hard put to it to eke out a meager victory on Morningside Heights. However, this time the boys had practically no trouble at all, piling up a substantial lead early in the contest and never relinquishing it. The score at half time was 24-12, later extended to 37-19 before the Lions came out of their doldrums. By this time it was too late to do anything about it, and the rally was soon squelched. High scorer for the Green was forward Paul Campbell, who tallied 13 points, followed by Myers with 10, and Coleman and sub-center Bob Harvey with 7 each. The team play continued to be featured, as in the majority of games so far, by the extremely tight guarding of the entire Dartmouth aggregation who, if they are no great shakes at scoring 70 or 80 points themselves, at least seem to be able to keep the opposition from doing so.

FIRST-STRING GUARD on the upsurging basketball team is George Heddy '47N, who teams up with Jim Coleman '46 to hold down the opposition.

A CONSISTENT SCORER, and top man in the Green victory over Columbia, Paul Campbell '48, forward on Ossie Cowles' 1946 quintet, has had a major hand in the team's mid-season winning streak.