The Nordham game had been carefully planned by Mr. Payson and Dan. Nordham had this year a light-weight team with a rather weak line and an exceptionally fast and clever back-field. On the offensive Yardley was to stick largely to plays between tackles, relying on Tom Roeder and Wallace Hammel for plunges, while Stearns, lighter but quicker, was expected to “knife” himself through with good effect. Ridge and Simms were to do the punting. Field goals were outside the calculations, since no one could be depended on to perform them with any certainty. On defense it was planned to use the “basket” formation, the end dropping well back and outside the opposing flankers, the full-back playing behind center and the quarter and the two half-backs playing a deep field. This, which was practically Yardley’s defense against kick formation, was to be used regularly, since the enemy had a reputation for being wonderfully tricky in her back-field. The arrangement weakened the[232] Yardley line, but Nordham was not thought to be heavy enough to gain by ordinary plunging tactics. The Blue started the game with the following line-up: Vinton, left end; Mitchell, left tackle; Ridge, left guard; Fogg, center; Merriwell, right guard; Jensen, right tackle; Norton, right end; Simms, quarter-back; Roeder, left half-back; Stearns, right half-back; Hammel, full-back. It was planned to use a number of substitutes just as soon as the game had been “placed on ice.” Holmes, quarter; Sayer, end; Greene and Fayette, half-backs; Marion, full-back, and Fales, guard, were all likely to play one or two periods.
Yardley won the toss and Hammel kicked off. Nordham tried the center of the Yardley line in a tentative way and then punted. The kick was a beautiful one against a slight wind and almost went over Simms’s head. The Nordham ends came down the field like two streaks of lightning and had little trouble getting by the interference. Simms made four or five yards and then went down with two Nordham players on top of him. Simms started right in trying out the Nordham line and Roeder and Hammel went through for good gains. But it was necessary to punt on the third down. Nordham opened up a bewildering series of attacks then. She had a quick line-shift[233] that was difficult to meet successfully and it soon became evident that the formation being used by Yardley would not meet the requirements of the occasion. Nordham set her whole team in motion to the right or left, as the case might be, with the runner effectually concealed until the moment came for him to “go in.” This had the effect of upsetting Yardley’s formation, and twice Norton was badly fooled. After Nordham had barely made her distance twice, Dan and Simms held a consultation and the “basket” formation was abandoned, the ends playing up into the line and the halves moving closer. That worked better, but Nordham had a dozen tricks up her sleeve and rattled them off so fast that Yardley began to be dazed. Plays that started without signals, plays in which the whole back-field moved one way and the quarter, carrying the ball, sprang around the opposite end; forward passes from kick formation, forward passes from close formation, on-side kicks and a half-dozen other plays tested the Yardley secondary defense as it had not been tested all the fall. Nordham’s plays were, however, all built around two players, her quarter, Buckman, a human eel, and her left half-back, Lishing. Both were exceptionally fast starters, ran like the wind, dodged miraculously and fought like wolves when tackled. Lishing was tall and[234] slim and the quarter-back was a small, wiry youngster of seventeen, red of hair and freckled of face. He wore no head guard and before the game was ten minutes old the slogan on the Blue’s side was, “Look for the red head!”
Nordham worked the ball to the middle of the field and there a play went wrong, the runner was thrown by Dan yards behind his line and Nordham kicked. It was Stearns’s ball over near the side-line and he had plenty of time to make the catch and get started. But there was a fumble, the Nordham left end tore down, evaded Norton and tackled Stearns just as that youth recovered the ball. It was Yardley’s ball on her fifteen yards. A plunge at the Nordham left tackle netted two yards and put the ball outside. It was taken in fifteen yards and Roeder struck the center of the enemy’s line for four yards. There was no great trouble getting through the first defense, but the secondary played good ball that day and time and again Roeder, Hammel or Stearns was stopped hard just when it seemed that he was safely through. With four to go, Norton dropped back to punt. A poor pass slowed him up and the kick when it got off was too low. Someone, a Nordham guard perhaps, leaped into the path of the ball and it thudded against his body, rebounded over the heads of the attack and trickled[235] towards the Yardley goal. Half a dozen players dived for it, but it was Lishing who, getting through in some marvelous manner, picked it up and romped straight over the goal-line and scored a touchdown between the posts. Buckman kicked an easy goal.
There was no more scoring in that period, although Yardley took the ball on steady plunges to the Nordham forty yards before the whistle blew. In the second period a thirty-yard run by Lishing along the side-line brought the spectators to their feet. A moment or two later Buckman got away around the other end and covered fifteen before he was finally stopped. With the ball on Yardley’s thirty yards, Nordham tried a fake kick that netted little. Then Buckman fell back for a try at goal from placement, although the opponents refused to believe that it would not turn out a fake. It was a bona fide attempt, however, and with a few feet more elevation it would have succeeded. As it was, the ball passed under the crossbar, and a great sigh of relief went up from the Yardley supporters on the stands.
Yardley chose to put the ball in scrimmage and then began an advance down the field that would not be denied. Roeder and Hammel went through the line time and again, and once or twice Stearns got past left tackle for good gains. Simms[236] worked a quarter-back run for twelve yards and placed the pigskin on Nordham’s twenty-five. Then Roeder was called on and made eight straight through center. Hammel slammed out four more. Stearns was “knifed” past right guard for three. Nordham rallied desperately and Roeder was thrown back for a loss. It was a situation calling for a good drop-kicker and Dan gritted his teeth in helplessness. Simms was for giving Norton a try, but Dan was afraid to risk it. Instead a forward pass from kick formation was tried, Simms passing to Dan at the side of the field. But Nordham was alert and although Dan made the catch nicely and started for the goal-line he was tackled for small gain and the ball went to Nordham on the twelve yards. Nordham kicked on first down, Stearns caught in midfield and came back seven before he was stopped. From there Yardley again took up her advance. Nordham replaced her left guard, but Yardley still went through and at last, after fourteen plays placed the ball over the line for her first score. A punt-out gave Hammel a try for goal from the twenty yards, but he missed badly. Nordham was still a point ahead.
But now it seemed only a question of how many more touchdowns Yardley could smash out in the remaining time, for the Nordham line, it was evident,[237] could not stop Roeder or Hammel. There was no more scoring in that period, however, and the two teams trotted off the field.
Payson had his chance to talk then, and he made good use of it. Nordham, he predicted, would play a kicking game for the............