College stories; Sports stories; Yale University -- Juvenile fiction
Captain Baldwin drew his men together in a little group and exhorted
them to such good purpose that the next charge was stopped dead in
its tracks. Again the lines faced each other, again came the crash
of body meeting body. The Harvard back with the ball tucked under
his arm shot off to the left, slipped inside his own tackle and was
clear of the first line of defense. But as he straightened up from
his running crouching position, Turner met him with a bull-like rush,
picked him clear off his feet and threw him with such violence that
the ball flew from his grasp and bounced crazily along the ground in
the direction of the goal. Man after man took a diving shot at it as
it rolled until the turf was covered with sprawling figures. Finally
the ball disappeared beneath a mass of bodies which the referee
slowly dug apart and found--Frank Armstrong wrapped around the ball
in a loving embrace!
"Yale's ball," was the silent announcement of the scoreboard, but
never was an announcement before or since greeted with such a yell.
From that moment the tide of battle turned. Porter got off a long,
low twisting punt which caught the Harvard backfield man napping.
He made a desperate effort to reach it, but although he got his
hands on the ball he could not hold it, and was swept away by a blue
avalanche. When the smoke cleared away, Captain Baldwin was lying on
the ball on Harvard's forty-yard line. Before the teams could line
up again, the whistle blew to end the quarter and the teams changed
ends of the field.
Three minutes later the game was on again, this time with Yale the
aggressor and Harvard on the defensive. Conditions of the first
quarter were reversed and now it was Yale, the team fighting like
one man, who was pushing her opponents steadily down the field. Held
at the thirty-yard line with three yards to go for a first down,
the Yale quarter sent a pretty forward pass to Armstrong who made a
beautiful catch and was not downed till he was run out of bounds at
the fifteen-yard line. Pandemonium reigned among the Yale hosts, and
the cheer-leaders tried vainly to get a unison cheer. The crowd would
not look but kept their eyes glued on the play.
Now it was Yale's turn to call for a touchdown, and the tiered
thousands did it right lustily, but unfortunately, for their hopes, a
bad pass on the next play lost five yards and Turner was stopped on
the next attempt.
"Armstrong back!" cried the quarter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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