Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Football stories
Yardley hammered the center for small gain and then slid off the
tackles and made her distance. A fumble was recovered and an end run
lost ground. Simms tried a quarter-back kick, and Nordham got the ball
near her thirty yards. An exchange of punts gave no advantage to either
side, and Nordham tried the Yardley center and squeezed through for two
short gains. Crandall got the punt and trailed off twenty-odd yards
before he was pulled down. Yardley went back to her former tactics of
direct attack, plugging the guards and tackles and now and then trying
a wide end run. In this manner the ball was carried down to Nordham’s
twenty-three-yard line. Marion got through for three, Crandall made
five on a skin-tackle play, and the pigskin rested squarely on the
fifteen-yard line. There was a pause here, Simms and Merriwell holding
a consultation. Kendall guessed that they were discussing the chances
of making that needed two yards. To try a field goal then seemed absurd.
Finally Fales dropped out of the line and went back as though to kick,
and, although there were one or two cries of “Fake!” Nordham seemed
pretty well convinced that a try-at-goal was to be the play. She pulled
her wings in a little and made ready to break through. This left the
Yardley ends free and Kendall, noting the fact, wondered whether Simms
meant to chance a forward pass. The ball went back to Fales and the
big guard stepped forward and swung his long leg. The Nordham forwards
came crashing through with upstretched arms, leaping and stumbling.
Fales, however, had not kicked. With the nearest Nordham players almost
upon him he side-stepped and hurled the ball straight over the center
of the line toward where Cousins awaited it. There was an instant of
suspense, of wild scrambling on the part of the defenders, and then
the ball, aimed too high, went over Cousins’ head, struck an upright
of the goal and bounded back. A dozen bodies threw themselves after
it. But under the rules it went to Nordham for a touchback and a groan
of disappointment arose from the stand. Nordham kicked from behind her
goal line and Crandall made the catch on Yardley’s forty-three yards.
From there Yardley hammered out two yards and then the whistle blew for
the end of the third period.
As the players separated to don their blankets and change positions
Coach Payson strode over to Andy Ryan. Kendall, watching, saw the
trainer swing around and look at him. Payson’s gaze followed. Kendall’s
heart leaped into his throat. For a moment the two talked. Once Andy
shook his head slowly. Once he shrugged his shoulders. Then Payson was
calling.
“Burtis!”
Kendall sprang from the bench and hurried to the side-line.
“Do you think you can go in and kick if you have a chance?” asked the
coach hurriedly. “If you’re to go in at all I’ve got to put you in now.
You may tell Simms not to use you except for kicking.”
“Yes, sir.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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