Tigers Down Alliance 19-0 Before Crowd Of 12,000
Massillon Gridders Win Hard-Earned Victory On long Run And Good Punt
By LUTHER EMERY
The Alliance “dreamboat” crashed in the Tiger jungle Friday evening and whatever visions the plucky crew of Aviators harbored of handing Massillon its first defeat by an Alliance team in 14 years, were buried under a 19-0 score.
Ever since 1932, Alliance has “dreamed” of a victory over the Tigers, and many thought that with Mel Knowlton, a Massillon boy, at the helm, this was the year.
With a record crowd of 12,000 fans (6,000 sitting and 6,000 standing) looking on; the Aviators made an exciting takeoff, but their big machine sputtered when it approached the Massillon goal and was unable to buck the Tiger Tornado.
A long run, a good punt and a blocked punt, one coming in each of the last three periods, downed the Alliance hope and brought a hard earned but deserving victory to Massillon as both score and statistics reveal.
Knowlton Surprises
Knowlton, always known for pulling surprises when he coached successfully in the Massillon junior high schools, met the Tiger offense last night with a 5-3-2-1 defense. It wasn’t exactly what the local coaches had expected.
In the pre-game guessing in which coaches try to outsmart the other by anticipating in advance what type of defense the opposition will employ, the Tiger staff had figured Knowlton would resort to a seven-man line. Their eyes popped when they saw Alliance lineup with only five-men on the forward wall and they knew they would have trouble. They did – and plenty of it.
The Alliance team went after the Tigers as though they were out to get their first meat in weeks, and employed the five-man line to real advantage in the early minutes of the game.
Nobody was able to do anything with anybody during the first series of plays run by the two teams and it was obvious that the football game of the week was being played.
It was a game Alliance wanted to win every which way and one the Tigers did not want to lose, so the chewing went on from the opening whistle to the final gun, with casualties strewn over the field in Bombay riot fashion. Not that players of either team were guilty of dirty playing, for the injuries were the result of the hardest kind of rough and tumble football and the impact of some of the tackles could be heard in the stands.
The Tigers were continually pouring back to the first aid station on the bench and two of them, Gene Yost and Gene Krisher, received injuries that will put them on the sidelines the next week or two. Yost, who sustained the hardest blow of all, was left in the Alliance city hospital last night. He was believed to have suffered a slight concussion.
He was only in the game a couple of minutes when he sustained a blow on the head. He was immediately removed from the contest and was apparently all right until he got a dizzy spell in the dressing room. An ambulance was called and he was taken to the Alliance city hospital where X-rays failed to reveal any fractures. His condition was reported as good today, and he will be brought by ambulance to the Massillon city hospital today for several days of rest and observation.
Krisher slipped a cartilage out of place in his knee. It was not believed to be torn and was put back in place after the game last night.
However, the injury will keep him on the bench this week and possibly one or more additional weeks.
Several other players were likewise shaken up. Gene Zorger got two wallops on the head that put him out of the contest but before the end of the game, he had ceased seeing stars and was coaxing to get back into the fray. Early in the contest Tom Brooks bloodied up a couple of towels when socked on the nose.
Knowlton counted casualties too on his Alliance team. They included Dick McFall whose accurate bullet passes were too hot for his teammates to handle.
Coach “Bud” Houghton was happy to pull through the game as well as he did and without any more injuries to his squad.
It seems that someone is seriously injured in every Massillon-Alliance game, and it was Krisher’s lot to be the first victim of the jinx. In fact, Alliance is one team he will always remember. He broke an arm against the Aviators two years ago and last year had several teeth kicked out.
The Alliance victory was not wrapped too securely until the final stages of the game when the Tigers scored their third touchdown. The margin of victory might just as well have been two touchdowns and with a little more luck, the Aviators might even have succeeded in holding the locals to a scoreless tie.
For one and one-half periods it appeared that the game was headed for just such a result when lightning suddenly struck the left side of the Aviator line in the form of Al Brown, and the Tiger quarterback raced 61 yards to a touchdown and added the extra point to give the locals a 7-0 lead at the half.
The importance of good punting was revealed on the scoreboard in the second half when the Tigers chalked up their last two touchdowns of the game.
It was a well placed punt by Dan Byelene that rolled out of bounds on the two-yard line that set up the second touchdown. Hurried in attempting to return the punt from behind his own goal line, Dick Strait booted the pigskin out of bounds on his own 19 and five plays later Alex Giloff went over from the four for the Tigers’ second score.
The fourth quarter was waning when they got their third and last. Rushing a weakening Alliance line, they threw Paul Varley for a 22-yard loss on two consecutive plays and then blocked Strait’s attempt to punt. Morrie Eberhardt, who had had his hands in blocked punts in other games, broke through the Aviator line, smeared the ball as it came off Strait’s toe and cleverly followed it over the goal line where he pounced on the leather for a touchdown.
Brown missed both attempted placekicks after the last two touchdowns.
The Tigers got down to the 11-yard line again before the end of the game.
Lots Of Thrills
Brown played only a few minutes of the game, and never went back into the contest after his long touchdown run, except to try for points after touchdown.
Zorger got away for several long runs before being kayoed in the fourth quarter and Ben Roderick sparkled with two good dashes in the last five minutes.
The game was a good one to watch because it was filled with the spectacular. Knowlton provided some of it with his aerial attack but McFall’s passes with the slippery ball were too hot for his receivers to handle and they dropped several that were in their arms. In fact Alliance’s only successful pass effort resulted in a loss of 13 yards. Other thrills were provided by Earl Johnson with his shoe string catch of Byelene’s fourth period pass; by Byelene himself in a dash that would have been a touchdown had he not run into one of his teammates; by Jim Young on one occasion when he hauled down Alliance’s George Balogh with a one-handed tackle; by Jerry Thorpe, son of Jack Thorpe, former Mt. Union college coach, who gave Alliance fans something to cheer about the last quarter with his classy dashes. He was the fastest man on the field last night, and only sits on the bench because he is a sophomore while Strait, whom he is understudying, is a senior and an inspirational leader for the Aviators.
Despite the fact that it made as many first downs as the Tigers, Alliance actually only threatened the Tiger goal on one occasion. It came in the closing minutes of the first half, when the Aviators marched the ball 45 yards to the Tiger 18. The threat ended when McFall, attempting to pass was chased back toward midfield. He finally got the ball away to Plum, who didn’t have any business catching it, for a loss of 13 yards on the play. The Aviators never threatened the last two periods though Thorpe on several occasions was within a few steps of shaking himself loose.
The Tigers as a whole resorted to straight football. They never threw a pass until the fourth quarter and then attempted only five, two of which were completed for 30 yards. Alliance pitched 14, completed the one for a 13-yard loss and had two intercepted.
While first downs were even, yards gained reveal the Tigers’ superiority. The local team made 216 yards rushing to Alliance’s 163 yards, and gained a net total of 246 yards to Alliance’s net of 131 yards.
The Tigers were victims of 60 yards in penalties to Alliance’s 15. One of the penalties, a five-yarder may have cost Massillon a first period touchdown. It had worked the ball from its own 15 to the Alliance 23 (thanks to a 30-yard run by Zorger), only to lose the ball partly as a result of the penalty.
The local team had the edge in punting despite a couple of poor Massillon boots in the early stages of the game. Byelene’s out of bounds effort on the two-yard line was the classiest kick of the evening.
Though threatening skies confined their efforts to a mere drizzle of rain a couple of times during the game the field was wet from heavier rains earlier in the evening. Despite the soggy condition of the turf, there was little slipping on the part of ball carriers and each team fumbled but once.
The Tiger line, which was patched up often because of injuries, gave a good account of itself during the night and frequently threw Alliance ball carriers for losses.
The Alliance team is one of the best that has represented that school for years. Players showed more pepper than any Aviator team since the days of Dr. George Wilcoxon and played their heats out for Knowlton. In fact several of them were groggy on their feet towards the end of the game which probably accounts for the Tigers’ third touchdown.
There’s a good spirit in Alliance and the fans are back of Knowlton 100 per cent – as they should be.
“We are going in the right direction now,” one Alliance fan was heard to say after the game, and the comment of others could be summed up in one word.—Amen.
Victory No. 3
Massillon Pos. Alliance
Zeller LE A. Macciolo
Young LT Welbush
Uliveto LG Reese
Darrah C Plum
Brooks RG Cobbs
Krisher RT Edwards
Eberhardt RE M. Macciolo
Byelene QB McFall
Giloff LH Balogh
Zorger RH Strait
Pedrotty FB Russ
Score by periods:
Massillon 0 7 6 6 19
Substitutions:
Massillon – Wittmann, rt; Brown, qb; Schludecker, re; Schumacher, rg; W. Krisher, c; Johnson, le; Ceckler, rg; Edie, t; Roderick, lh; Yost, fb; Badarnza, rh; Tackas, fb.
Alliance – Varley, qb; Clayton, fb; Merrill, lh; Vernon, g; Thorpe, rh;
Nixon, g; Myers, t.
Touchdowns:
Massillon – Brown; Giloff; Eberhardt.
Points after touchdown:
Massillon – Brown (placekick).
Referee – Jenkins.
Umpire – Schlemmer.
Head Linesman – Schill.
Field Judge – Zimmerman.
Statistics
Mass. Alliance
First downs 9 9
Passes attempted 5 14
Passes completed 2 1
Had passes intercepted 1 2
Yards gained passing 30 -13
Yards gained rushing 216 163
Total yards gained 246 150
Yards lost rushing 23 19
Net yards gained 223 131
Times penalized 6 1
Yards lost penalties 60 15
Fumbles 1 1
Recovered own fumbles 1 1
Times kicked off 4 1
Average kickoff (yards) 47 45
Kickoffs returned (yards) 15 80
Times punted 4 6
Average punt (yards) 32.7 23.1
Had punt blocked. 0 1
Tickets On
Sale Monday
In response to an increasing public demand, Washington High School Monday afternoon will sell season tickets for the remaining four home games on the Tiger schedule. The four are Warren, Dayton Chaminade, Toledo Waite and Canton McKinley.
The school has had so many requests from fans who would purchase season tickets for the last four games, that it has decided to place them on sale at 3:30 p.m. Monday. A limited supply of reserved seats for next week’s Mansfield game will be sold at the same time.
Merle Darrah
