Tiger Gridders Whip Toledo Waite In Deep Mud 19-7
Massillon Team Scores First Three Times It Gets Hands On The Ball
By LUTHER EMERY
The Washington high school Tigers beat Jupiter Pluvius and the Toledo Waite football team 19-7 before 12,000 dripping fans in the Lucas county city Friday evening to score their seventh victory in eight games.
Qualifying as worthy seamen for the way in which they sailed their ship of victory around the Toledo ends, the Massillon gridders triumphed against odds as great as those overcome by President Truman in his ballot box sweep last Tuesday.
On a dry night, they could have named their score, as far as we are personally concerned, but it was a wet night and the word cannot properly describe it.
In fact you have to feel kind of sticky and wacky, with mud oozing from your shoes hair hanging around your ears and clothes faded on your underwear, to get into the spirit of this little ditty.
The Massillon gridders wanted a dry field. They feared what would happen on a wet gridiron and they didn’t dare give thought to a quagmire such as developed before the game was more than a few minutes old.
Waite evidently wanted a wet field, and Jupiter Pluvius was on its side, for the rain poured and poured, but the tarpaulin that could have been rolled over the gridiron was left beneath the grandstand where tarpaulins shouldn’t be.
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THE TIGERS were magnificent as they overcame Waite’s 20 or more pound average per man to push over three first half touchdowns, (that’s as many times as they had the ball) while holding the Toledoans to one – a questionable score that came after the end of the second period.
The locals made two touchdown efforts the second half, and both were called back for violations, one of the two nullifying a brilliant 54-yard run by Capt. Al Brown for what would have been his third touchdown of the game.
He was also part loser on the other when he ran from his 13 to the Waiter 37 where he pitched the ball out to Clarence Johnson who went the rest of the distance. Handkerchiefs were thrown all over the field on this play. To start with, Waite was offside and the officials said Brown’s attempted lateral to Johnson went forward. They ruled the one infraction cancelled theother and the ball went back to the 13.
The Tigers as a whole played it safe the second half, punting once on third down and not chancing tricky ball handling.
The game was the rough and bruising affair it was expected to be and at times almost threatened to turn into a free for all. It was virtually impossible to identify players, by number, face or otherwise, and most of the time they looked like someone emerging from a clay massage or models for a plaster cast. They staggered around blinded by mud, and with the supply of towels exhausted, officials eventually used their red handkerchiefs to wipe the ooze from the eyes and mouths of members of both teams so that they could see in which direction to run.
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THOUGH it was muddy from the start, the Tigers scored their three touchdowns the first three times they got the ball when the mud was only ankle deep and ‘twas well they did for they found it hard to move in the later stages of the game when it looked as though they were running around on stumps.
The difference in statistics was not as great as the score, and yet it could just as well have read 31-0 instead of 19-7. First downs were the same, 10 for each team, and the locals only gained 201 yards to Waite’s 189. Because of the slippery ball, both teams feared to throw and only three passes were attempted all night, the Tigers trying one and Waite two. None was completed.
Some idea of what might have happened on a dry field was unfolded in the first period and a half when the Massillonians rolled to their three touchdowns. It took only three plays to get the first score.
Waite received to start the game and Clarence Johnson kicked a long floater that held Waite to its own 14-yard line. Failing to make more than seven yards in three attempts, the Indians punted to Irvin Crable who was downed on his 45. On the first play from scrimmage, Dick Jacobs, who substituted for Crable, broke away to his 25-yard line Johnson hit through tackle for one and the Tigers ambushed the Indians as Jack Hill tossed a pitchout to Al Brown who scampered for the remaining 24 yards and the first touchdown of the game. The attempt for the extra point went bad when Hill couldn’t hold on to a low pass and fumbled the ball.
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THE TIGERS SCORED their second touchdown the next time they came into possession of the pigskin. It began when Ben Roderick covered a Waite fumble after the Indians had marched the ball from their own 20 to the Tiger 43. Brown scooted 24 yards to the Waite 33. Three plays failed to gain a yard but on fourth down, Brown reeled off 24 yards to a first down on the Waite nine. Hill lost two yards in recovering his own fumble, but Johnson made it up on the next play when he was turned loose around his left end for a touchdown. Brown carried the extra point over to make the score 13-0, just as the period ended.
The Tigers marched to their third touchdown the third time they got the ball. Dick Jacobs put them in position with a brilliant 41-yard return of a Toledo punt, to the 31-yard line. Brown went to the 18 around his right end on the next play and here the Tigers got a series of breaks that helped them on their way. They fumbled and Waite recovered, but Waite was offside and penalized five yards. Brown ran to a first down on the five-yard line and another offside penalty against Waite put the ball on the one-yard line. Brown smacked through right tackle with room to spare for a touchdown. Hill tried to sneak through with the extra point but failed.
Waite took the following kickoff on the 37 and marched the ball the remaining distance of the field for a touchdown. Once the Tigers had the Indians apparently stopped on the locals’ 40-yard line, but an offside penalty against Massillon started Waite moving again. Using power plays on off tackle smashes, the Toledo boys bulled their way to first downs on the 38-yard line, 23-yard line and 11-yard line against a weakening Tiger. Here the Tigers made the mistake of taking time out with only 35 seconds left to play. A five-yard penalty for offside advanced the ball to the six and another offside penalty put it down on the one. The Tigers went into an eight-man line. Steve Katich plunged into the Massillon line but was thrown back. Waite took time out. Thomas hit center for no gain and Waite again was given a time out when two substitutes entered the game. As Waite came out of its huddle time was again started and apparently the half had expired before the ball was passed to Quarterback Bill White who sneaked it over by inches.
Coach Chuck Mather and assistants rushed on to the field to protest the stopping of the clock when the two Toledo substitutes entered the game prior to the last play claiming the Toledo team had already used its timeouts and should have been given a five-yard penalty.
The officials did not allow the protest.
Ronald Bedee placekicked the extra point and that wound up the scoring for the game at 19-7. As it turned out there was no need for the second half, for neither team was able to get the ball legally over the other’s goal line and players contented themselves with ramming faces into the mud.
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THE NEAREST the Tigers came to the Waite goal the second half was the 18-yard line but the effort ended when Waite covered a fumble by Roderick on a double reverse. Waite likewise drove to the Tiger 13 in the fourth period but also lost the ball on the 13. The game ended with the Tigers marching 40 yards to a first down on the Toledo 25.
The victory was the Tigers’ seventh in eight games and also ended a 10-game winning streak for Toledo Waite that began in the later part of the 1947 season. Undoubtedly the local eleven will receive at least a fourth place ranking in the scholastic football polls next week, for it was tied with Waite for fourth in this week’s Associated Press poll and was two notches behind the Indians in a rival news poll, all of which shows that football polls are no more accurate than those of the presidential variety.
Because the Waite stadium does not have a dressing room, Tiger players dressed at their hotel and returned to it immediately after the game.
We hate to think what the hotel rooms must have looked line after the local boys got through taking off their dirty togs. They did take one precaution to try to keep the place clean – they had house slippers with them so they would not have to walk through the hotel lobby and halls in their muddy football cleats.
Jack Houston, was the only local player removed from the contest because of injuries. He suffered a strained knee.
Coach Mather used fewer players than at any time this season, with only 20 boys getting into the game.
The Tigers have two games yet to play. Next Friday they take on Barberton in the local stadium and once again have an old score to settle in that encounter, for Barberton, the 1947 state champion, was one of four teams to tie the Massillon Bengal down last year.
After the Barberton game comes the traditional daylight clash with Canton McKinley to be played Nov. 20 in Tiger stadium.
Muddy But Good
MASSILLON
ENDS – SLICKER, HOUSTON, Studer.
TACKLES – KRISHER, TAKACS, Jones, Schumacher, Campbell.
GUARDS – MORROW, REICHENBACK, Paul.
CENTER – McVEY.
QUARTERBACK – HILL
HALFBACKS – CRABLE, JOHNSON, Jacobs, Roderick, Bush.
FULLBACKS – BROWN, Lane.
TOLEDO WAITE
ENDS – DAILY, BEDEE, Bee.
TACKLES – JESCHKE, HARRISON.
GUARDS – TIMM, ANTOINE.
CENTER – BUESCHEN.
QUARTERBACKS – WHITE.
HALFBACKS – FETZER, B. THOMAS, Owens, Nicholas, Lammie.
FULLBACKS – KATICH, Thompson.
Score by periods:
Massillon 13 6 0 0 19
Waite 0 7 0 0 7
Touchdowns:
Massillon – Brown 2; Johnson.
Waite – White.
Points after touchdown:
Massillon – Brown (carried).
Waite – Bedee (placekick).
Referee – Paul Landis.
Umpire – George Meulich.
Head Linesman – Forrest Fordham.
Field Judge – Frank Toth.
Statistics Of The Game
Mass. Waite
First downs 10 10
Passes attempted 1 2
Passes completed 0 0
Yards gained rushing 201 189
Yards lost 8 11
Net yards gained 193 178
Times kicked off 5 0
Average kickoff (yards) 53 —
Yards kickoffs returned by 0 70
Times punted 1 2
Average punt 29 38
Yards punts returned by 54 0
Times fumbled 4 4
Lost ball on fumbles 1 3
Times penalized 8 4
Yards penalized 40 30
