DARTMOUTH 21, HOLY CROSS 21
The Crusaders of Holy Cross, under the tutelage of their new coach, Dr. Eddie Anderson, provided a rude shock to the partisans of the Green by playing Dartmouth to a 21-21 tie in the opening game of the season. After previous Holy Cross teams had obligingly rolled over and played dead, this year's hard-hitting aggregation refused to do so and scared the daylights out of Coach McLaughry s men, not to mention the thousands of Dartmouth rooters who sat in the stands on a balmy autumn day. Scoring in the opening quarter, the Crusaders were out in front most of the day, with Dartmouth forced to come from behind three times to tie them. Both teams scored in the last period. Dartmouth suffered a cruel blow of fortune in the final two minutes by having a touchdown called back on a clipping penalty, after halfback Tom Collins had intercepted an erring Holy Cross pass and galloped 50 yards to a suppsod score. 7 hat jaunt would have provided the winning margin for Dartmouth, but it was disallowed, and time ran out as the Green was desperately trying to score again.
In their opening contest, Coach McLaughry's men showed two glaring and outstanding weaknesses—both defensive. One was at the ends, where the departure of Dave Beeman and Joe Sarno had left two gaping defensive holes, which were not plugged by a succession of eager but inept operatives rushed into the fray. Holy Cross continued to go both inside and outside of the ends all afternoon, and little could apparently be done about it. The other difficulty was at the defensive halfbacks, where the extreme vulnerability to hostile passes cost the Green sorely. Time and again the Crusaders eluded the e fensive halfbacks in their aerial attack, as the visitors outgunned even the redout able John Clayton in this respect, with nine completions out of 18 tries for 196 yards, as compared with 12 out of 21 for Dartmouth for 105 yards. In all fairness, it should be pointed out that Clayton was rushed hard by the charging Holy Cross line and was either hurried or forced to eat the ball time and again.
With these negative and inevitably melancholy details out of the way, we may turn to the brighter side o£ the picture. On defense, Coach John Dell Isola's men from tackle to tackle held the Crusaders handily. On the ground, the running efforts of Bill Roberts at fullback took over where that young man left off last year as the leading ground-gainer in the Ivy League. Bill gained 100 yards in 22 times with the ball, thereby suggesting the dependence that the current Dartmouth team places upon the modest boy from Dubuque. Bob Tyler got off a nice touchdown jaunt in the third period, during which he caromed off several bulky Crusaders and kept going into the end zone after he appeared to be stopped. But most of the running attack was centered about Roberts.
The initial Dartmouth tally came in the second period, after the visitors had scored in the opening frame. A long runback of a punt by Charlie Curtis set up the score, which was engineered by a pass from Clayton to the towering end John McDonald, who snared the ball in the end zone. Holy Cross scored again in the second period and the teams left the field at the half with the Crusaders ahead by the score of 14-7, after having decisively outplayed the home team during the two initial periods. The Green came out after the half breathing fire and soon scored on another pass, this one to Jack Foster, who was filling in for Roberts at fullback. The wily Clayton called a play which faked the opposition practically out of the park and left Foster all alone in the end zone, where he happily gathered in the wafting pigskin. This made the score 14-14, as Doc Dey (brother of Bill Dey) kicked the second of his three points after touchdown.
Holy Cross scored its final touchdown in the last period, leaving the Green behind for the third time. Then came Bobby Tyler's dash off his own right tackle, which terminated only when he went across standing up. Doc Dey came through for the third time with the vital one point and the score was tied up at 21-21. The Crusaders kept trying through the air, however, and the Green secondary came through with one of its rare interceptions of the afternoon when Tommy Collins, as noted, grabbed the ball and dashed half the length of the field, only to be called back. With the clock running out and one second to go, Dey was called in to do the impossible, namely, place-kick from the 40-yard line. The ball fell far short, and the game was over. For Holy Cross it was a moral victory. For the Green it was better than a defeat.
