LEHIGH 16, DARTMOUTH 14
For the fourth consecutive Saturday, the Dartmouth football team left the field without having won a game. The Engineers from Lehigh brought a fast, burly, hard-hitting and well-coached team to Memorial Field and they deserved to win. This encounter, incidentally, broke a string of nine consecutive victories on the home field for the Green, stretching back to the 32-0 debacle against Pennsylvania in 1947. This time it was a team from another part of Pennsylvania, but one that was almost as good.
During the initial two periods, the visitors had very much the better of it. The Green cohorts seemed unable to do anything right. They fumbled on crucial occasions, once behind their own goal line. They couldn't tackle convincingly, and time and again the hard-running Lehigh backs bounced off a prospective Dartmouth defender. The Green hardly blocked at all, as the Dartmouth backs repeatedly failed to get past the line of scrimmage. They couldn't even protect the passer, as John Clayton had one of his most violent afternoons in the face of a charging enemy line.
The only high spot in the initial two stanzas came when Al Reich, who came out of nowhere this fall to win the starting right halfback post on both offense and defense, broke over his own left end and went 67 yards for a touchdown. With only the Lehigh safety man between himself and the goal, Reich fended him off single-handed and blazed and powered his way into pay territory. A few minutes later, he lost some of this luster by fumbling behind his own goal line, but he re- deemed himself by playing an outstanding game both at offense and defense the rest of the afternoon. The latter doubling in brass, incidentally, is something of a novelty in these days of the specialist and the platoon, even though it may seem no great shakes to the old Greens who grew up in the days of 60-minute football.
Lehigh came right back to even the count shortly after, following some very fancy running by their great captain, Dick Gabriel, who really (if you'll forgive me) blew that horn this fine October afternoon. Then came the play which was eventually to cost the game. The Lehigh kickoff was returned by Reich to the Dartmouth 17, only to have the ball returned to the 2-yard line by a clipping penalty. With the ball there, Clayton called for a running play, whereupon Reich fumbled and then recovered behind the Dartmouth goal line for a 2-point deficit. At the time, this puny two points did not look ominous, but as the game wore on, it got bigger and bigger.
At the beginning of the second half, the Green came out with fire in their eye and promptly penetrated to the Lehigh 5-yard line, after a sustained march. After three tries at the line, a fourth down pass by Clayton was knocked down and the Engineers took over. Later in the period, however, with Clayton passing on 10 out of 12 consecutive plays, he finally hit the jackpot with a toss to John McDonald. Fry converted and Dartmouth was behind 16-14 (Lehigh had previously scored for the second time).
Time then began to run out, and the Green tried desperately to make up their 2-point deficit, which by that time was the equivalent of a touchdown. Several times they penetrated deep into Lehigh territory, but each time they were unable to muster the punch to put it over. Lehigh intercepted several of Clayton's passes at crucial moments, thereby stifling potential scoring threats. Dartmouth made enough yards during the second half both through the air and on the ground to score four or five touchdowns. But they couldn't provide the power when it was needed.
Clayton tried 25 passes and completed the impressive total of 14 for 145 yards, although most of them were short. The continued absence of Billy Roberts at fullback hurt the Dartmouth team immeasurably. With no power runner to take the heat off Clayton, the blond quarterback had to do most of his throwing on the dead run. Dartmouth also lost the ball three times on fumbles, a form of lapse which cost the Green dearly on the first two occasions and on the third cost them the game.
Lehigh brought a large and enthusiastic crowd of rooters with them, including a very fancy band that indulged in all manner of expert maneuvers on the field. When the game was over and Lehigh had continued its undefeated record, the visitors violated the chaste steel goal posts of Memorial Field and bore them off to a nameless fate. There was nothing anybody seemed able to do about that, either, des pite some aimless fisticuffs by the home forces. It was that kind of day.
