Then Irving put Westby out of his mind. St. Timothy’s had kicked;
Ballard had recovered the ball for Harvard on St. Timothy’s forty-yard
line, and then Warren, the quarterback, had made a long pass straight
into Lawrence’s hands; Lawrence started to run; then, just as Chase and
Baldersnaith were bearing down for the tackle, he stopped and hurled the
ball forward and across to Newell, the other Harvard end.
It sailed clear over the heads of the intervening players; Newell had
been signaled to, had got down the field and was ready for it; three St.
Timothy’s players ran to get under the ball, but instead of blocking
Newell off and merely trying to spoil his catch, they all tried to make
the catch themselves; they all leaped for it. Newell was the quickest;
he grabbed the ball out of the air and went down instantly, with the
three others on him—but he was on St. Timothy’s ten-yard line.
It was a brilliant pass and a brilliant catch; St. Timothy’s stood
looking on disconsolate, while the Harvard players gathered exultantly
for the line-up. Three rushes through tackle and centre and one run
round Lawrence’s end carried the ball across St. Timothy’s line for a
touchdown. Ballard kicked the goal.
There was no more scoring that half. In the second half St. Timothy’s
kicked off; Harvard got the ball and set about rushing it back up the
field. They had gained ten yards and had carried the ball forty yards
from their own goal, when they lost possession of it on a fumble. The
spectators cheered, and began shouting,—
“Touchdown, St. Timothy’s, touchdown!”
There was more shouting when, with Collingwood interfering for him,
Dennison broke through the Harvard left tackle and made fifteen yards.
Then Collingwood made a quarter-back kick which Morrill captured on the
Harvard five-yard line.
The St. Timothy’s cheering broke out afresh, Scarborough leading it.
Irving joined in the cheer; he was glad to see Collingwood and the
others making gains—provided they did not make them round Lawrence’s
end.
On the five-yard line the Harvard defense stiffened. On the third down
the ball was two yards from the goal line.
“Everybody get into this next play—everybody!” cried Collingwood
appealingly; he went about slapping his men on the back. “Now
then—twelve, thirty-seven, eighteen.”
There was a surge forward, a quivering, toppling mass that finally fell
indecisively. No one knew whether the ball had been pushed across or
not. No one wanted to get up for fear it might be pushed one way or the
other in the shifting.
Barclay and Randolph, who was umpire, began summarily dragging the
players from the pile, hauling at an arm or a leg; at last Dennison was
revealed at the bottom hugging the ball—and it was just across the line.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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