It had been a terrific contest, a biggest game never to be forgotten by the ten thousand thrilled spectators! Each eleven had been trained to the second for this decisive Championship fight, and with the coveted gonfalon of glory before them, the Bannister players battled desperately, while Ballard's fighters struggled as grimly for their Alma Mater. For six years, the Gold and Green had failed to annex the Championship, and for the past three, the invincible Ballard machine had rushed like a car of Juggernaut over all other State elevens; one team was determined to wrest the banner from its rival's grasp, and the other fully as resolved to retain possession, hence a memorable gridiron contest, to which even the alumni could find none in past history to compare, was the result. Weakened by the loss of Thor, whose colossal bulk and Gargantuan strength would have made victory a moral certainty, presenting practically the same eleven that had faced Ballard the past season and had been defeated by a scant margin, old Bannister had started the first quarter with a furious rush that swept the enemy to midfield without the loss of a first down. Then Ballard had rallied, stopping that triumphal march, on its own thirty-five yard line, but unable to check Quarterback Deacon Radford, who booted a forty-three-yard goal from a drop-kick, with the score 3-0 in Bannister's favor, and Deacon, a brilliant but erratic kicker, apparently in fine trim, the Gold Green rooters went wild. In the second half, however, came the break of the game, as sporting writers term it. The strong Ballard eleven found itself, and with a series of body-smashing, bone-crushing rushes, battering at the Bannister lines like the Germans before Verdun, they steadily fought their way, trench by trench, line by line, down the field. Without a fumble, or the loss of a single yard, the terrific, catapulting charges forced back old Bannister, until the enemy's fullback, who ran like the famous Johnny Maulbetsch, of Michigan, shot headlong over the goal line! The attempt for goal from touchdown failed, leaving the score, at the end of the third quarter, Ballard--6; Bannister--3.