Part 21 (1/2)
”Here comes a trick,” muttered Clint.
”I doubt it,” responded Chase. ”It looks like it, and it's meant to, but I guess when it comes it'll be a straight line-buck with that careless-looking full-back carrying the ball. I hope Innes sizes it up the way I do, for--”
”Watch this!” Innes shouted. ”Watch the ball! Look out for a forward!
Come in here, Kendall! Throw 'em back, fellows!”
The Chambers quarter shouted his signals, the ball went to him, the two half-backs shot away to the left, the full-back plunged ahead, took the ball and struck hard, head down, at the left of centre. But Brimfield had not been fooled. Blaisdell wavered, but the secondary defence piled up behind him. The full-back stopped, struggled ahead, stopped again and then came staggering back, half the Brimfield team about him. The whistle piped, and--
”Brimfield's ball!” cried the referee. ”First down right here!” He waved the linemen toward the Chambers goal and the grand-stand burst into a peal of triumph. Amy clapped Clint on the knee--fortunately it was not the injured one!--and cried: ”Some team, Clint! Say, they play almost as well as the second, eh?”
And Clint, laughing delightedly, acknowledged that they did--almost!
Harris, well behind his own goal line, punted to safety, a long and high corkscrew that brought another roar of delight from the home team supporters and settled into the arms of a Chambers back near the forty-yard line. Two tries at the left wing and the whistle shrilled the end of the third period and the teams changed goals.
”Bet you it'll be a stand-off,” said Amy.
”Don't want to take your money,” replied Chase, with a smile.
”Who will score, then?”
”Brimfield for certain, Chambers perhaps. If Chambers scores it'll be from the field. She's killed herself.”
And Chase's prophecy proved fairly correct. Chambers had shot her bolt.
Brimfield secured the ball by inches on a fourth down near the middle of the field and her first desperate attack, a skin-tackle play with St.
Clair carrying the pigskin, piled through for nearly ten yards, proving that Chambers was no longer invulnerable. Carmine, still in control, called for more speed and still more. The Maroon-and-Grey warriors fairly dashed to their positions after a play. Chambers called time for an injured guard and subst.i.tuted two new linesmen. Kendall and Harris were poked through left tackle for good gains and St. Clair got away around left end and was not stopped until he had placed the ball on the twenty-three. A fake kick worked for a short gain through centre, Carmine carried the pigskin around left tackle for three, Harris hurled himself through the rapidly weakening centre for four more and on the next play netted the distance and a yard to spare.
The grand-stand had well-nigh emptied itself, the spectators hurrying along the side line toward the Chambers goal. Amy and Clint and Chase squirmed to the front of the crowd where Tracey Black was wildly imploring the fellows to ”Keep back of the line, please! Don't get on the field, fellows!”
Chambers put in a new left half and Coach Robey sent Gafferty in for Hall. The latter had been pretty badly treated in the third quarter. The pigskin was on the Chambers twelve yards now and Carmine and Captain Innes went back and put their heads together. Then Harris joined them and the crowd along the edge of the field set up a demand for a touchdown. ”We don't want a field-goal, Innes! We want a touchdown! Give us a touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!”
But Jack Innes apparently thought a field-goal with its accompanying three points was sufficient to try for, for Harris walked slowly back to kicking position and spread his long arms out. But no one expected a try-at-goal on first down and there was none. Harris got the ball, made believe hurl it to the left, turned and raced to the right. Kendall and Carmine bowled over an opponent apiece and Harris ducked through and was pulled down on the six yards, while some seven score excited youths danced along the side line and howled gleefully.
Again Harris went back, but this time it was Carmine himself who sought a breach in the opponent's defence and was finally upset without gain.
It was third down now, with four to go. The ball was well to the right of the goal, but Harris had done harder angles than that in his time, and hardly anyone there doubted that he would manage to land the ball across the bar. For there was hardly a question but that Brimfield was to try a field-goal this time. She weakened her end defence to provide protection to the kicker, both Kendall and Roberts playing well in and leaving the opposing ends unchallenged. But if Harris was capable of dropping the ball over from that angle he failed to do it on this occasion.
Back near the eighteen yards he waited, while Carmine piped the signal, arms outstretched. Chambers feinted and danced in her eagerness to pile through. Then back went the ball, waist-high, and Harris caught it and turned it carefully. The enemy thrust and struggled. An eager left end came around and went to earth before Roberts. Confusion reigned supreme for a long moment. Then the unexpected happened. Harris swung his leg, but he didn't drop the ball to it. Instead he turned quickly, tossed it a running figure which had suddenly detached itself from the offence and threw himself in the path of a reaching Chambers forward. Off to right shot the runner with the ball. Cries, frantic gasps from Chambers! A sudden scuttling to the left to head off the attack! But the Chambers left wing had been neatly drawn in and Steve Edwards had nearly a clear field in front of him when, ten yards from the side line, he saw his chance and dodging behind St. Clair and eluding the Chambers right half-back, he fairly romped across the line!
”That,” shouted Amy, whacking Chase on the back, ”is what is called strategy! Get me? Strategy!”
Three minutes later Jack Innes had kicked goal and turned the six to a seven. And five minutes later still the game came to an end with Brimfield once more pounding at Chambers' door. It was generally conceded that if the contest had lasted another minute Brimfield would have added another score.
CHAPTER XV
A BROKEN FIDDLE
Brimfield trooped back across the field to the Row noisily triumphant.
Two hours before had anyone suggested that it would be satisfied with anything less than three scores it would have derided the notion. Now however it was not only satisfied but elated. Those seven points looked large and n.o.ble, and the home team's victory was viewed as a masterful triumph. Chambers was credited with having put up a fine fight, with having a more than ordinarily powerful team, and there were some who even went so far as to declare that Claflin would show no better football than today's visitors had shown. But that was doubtless an exaggeration, and those who made it had probably forgotten those first two periods in which both teams played very ordinary football indeed. A fair a.n.a.lysis of the game would have shown that the two elevens, while playing somewhat different styles of football, had been very evenly matched in ability and condition, that both had been weak on defence and that neither had proved itself the possessor of an attack which could be depended on to gain consistently. What both teams had shown was a do-or-die spirit which, while extremely commendable, would not have availed against a well-rounded eleven evenly developed as to attack and defence. In other words, both Brimfield and Chambers had shown fine possibilities, but neither was yet by any means a remarkable team.
In some ways the visitors had outplayed Brimfield. Chambers' attack, especially between the twenty-five-yard lines, had been far more varied and effective. Her line, from tackle to tackle, had been stronger than her opponent's. Brimfield had been especially weak at the left of centre, and a resume of the game showed that Chambers had made two-thirds of her line gains through Blaisdell and Saunders. Churchill, who had replaced Blaisdell in the second half, had shown up no better on defence. At the ends Brimfield had held her own, while her backs had shown up superior to Chambers'. Chambers had outpunted Brimfield an average of five yards at a kick and had placed her punts to better advantage. In generals.h.i.+p both teams had erred frequently and there was little to choose between them.