Tigers Beat Alliance 22-6
Aviators Give Bengals Rough Battle Before Going Down To Defeat
By LUTHER EMERY
If your hair is still standing on end today you were probably one of the Massillon fans included in the crowd of 13,258 who saw the Washington high Tigers defeat Alliance 22-6 at Tiger stadium Friday evening.
The locals won, and thereby avenged their lone loss of 1954, but it was a hair-raiser that could have gone the other way as many of the Massillon crowd feared it would when the Aviators began bombing the Tigers with passes.
The Massillon eleven scored a safety in the first period on a bad Alliance pass that rolled into the end zone, got a touchdown the same quarter on an 18-yard run by Halfback Charlie Brown, added another in the second on a 45-yard dash by Brown and scored their third in the fourth on a sneaker by Johnny James.
* * *
ALLIANCE scored its only touchdown in the third period on a straight shot over the line, Ted Davison to End Tom Schaefer.
But that only tells part of the story.
Alliance had its tough breaks when passes were dropped with possible touchdowns in sight, or when runners in the clear were hauled down by the Massillon secondary.
And the Tigers had their tough ones too with two long runs called back, one for a touchdown, because of rule infractions.
As expected, Mel Knowlton, who 23 years ago quarterbacked the Massillon Tigers, had his Alliance team all wired to give Massillon the shock of its life.
The Aviators came out fighting and went down the same way, and the Tigers knew they were in a ball game from the opening minute to the end.
Knowlton crossed up the Massillon coaching staff by playing an entirely different offensive game than what he had showed the previous week, and the time spent on preparing special defenses to meet the anticipated Alliance style of play was just wasted energy.
* * *
THE AVIATOR line, which we suspect weighed considerably more than we had been led to believe, gave the Tiger forward wall a rough time all evening and yielding ground stubbornly.
When the figures were added, Alliance gained the most yards and had the most first downs, but the Tigers had the points.
First downs were nine to eight in the Aviators’ favor and they gained 227 yards, 117 through passing, to Massillon’s 221. But they were also thrown for more losses, 65 to Massillon’s 12, which left the Tigers a net of 209 to Alliance’s 162.
Coach Tom Harp wasn’t too pleased with the performance of his team. He pointed out after the game that a team always has a couple of poor games during the season and he considered this a poor game as far as his team was concerned.
When you are playing against a bigger line as we were your timing must be perfect or they will push the ball right down your throat,” he said. “Our timing was not as good as it should have been. We have a lot of work to do and we are going to start in Monday to get it accomplished.”
Harp praised the passing of Davison and the pass snatching of the rangy Schaefer who was a head taller than most of the Massillon secondary.
* * *
THE MASSILLON gridders tried to hurry Davison and did succeed in spilling him for 34 yards in losses, but he completed six passes of the 16 he got away for a net gain of 116 yards. One pass was caught for a yard loss, and several were dropped that could have been caught.
The Tigers got only one pass away and that was intercepted by Alliance. Johnny James tried to throw a couple of others but was smeared in the attempt by the fast charging Alliance line.
Had Anderson Hawkins, Alliance halfback, the speed of a couple of Massillon’s backs he would have gotten away for two Alliance touchdowns. Twice he was ready to break for the goal when a Massillon tackler closed in and got him.
Alliance’s big hope of catching the Tigers, however, was dashed on the first play of the fourth quarter when Schaefer dropped a finger-tip pass on the 15-yard line which had he caught might have resulted in an Alliance touchdown. The score at the time was 15-6. The Tigers capitalized on the disappointment to roar back in five plays and score their third and final touchdown of the game.
Massillon got its first two points with five minutes and 32 seconds remaining in the first period when it had Alliance backed up to its own 15-yard line. Attillio Giovannatto dropped back to punt, got a bad pass from center and the ball rolled behind the goal. He and Dave Canary and a couple of other Tigers dove for the ball, but the former got it and was pinned by Canary for the safety. That gave the Tigers two points.
* * *
ALLIANCE had to kick off after the safety and Don Duke made a brilliant 40-yard return to the Alliance 27. The Tigers hammered to the 18 where Charlie Brown circled his left end for the score. He was liberated for the run by a fine block tossed by Guard Dick Roan on Alliance’s Hawkins. With Archibald plunging the extra point across, the score was 9-0, and that is where it stood until midway in the second period when Alliance punted to its own 45. Brown cut loose on a left end run and went the distance on the first play to make the total 15-0, Archibald missing a single wing plunge for the extra point.
Alliance began throwing after that and though it didn’t score showed enough to fans to prove there was dynamite in Davison’s arm.
The Tigers got themselves into a hole on the second half kickoff when they fumbled the ball near the end zone and then took time to run laterally on a possible handoff. They wound up on their own two. When three plays gained only that many yards they punted to their own 35 and the wound-up Aviators started their scoring drive.
Hawkins rammed it to a first down on the 23 in two attempts and he and Tim Johnson made another first on the 12. Hawkins was tossed for a two-yard loss but with the Tigers using an eight-man line and the three linebackers crowding the line of scrimmage, Davison wisely tossed a blooper over the line to Schaefer who had nothing to do but run across the goal with it.
There were still more than six minutes of the period remaining to be played.
* * *
THE TIGERS came back after the kickoff for two consecutive first downs but fumbled the ball to Alliance on the latter’s 40.
A nine-yard peg to Schaefer and a 16-yard dash by Hawkins got the ball to the 35. Hawkins got seven more, but Schaefer dropped a finger-tip pass from Davison with a possible touchdown in sight.
The Tigers took over and on the first play Brown took a lateral from James that the latter timed perfectly and went 51 yards before he was dumped on the 17. A five-yard penalty for being in motion failed to keep the locals from scoring, James twisting through for the point from the four-yard line. Duke went over for the extra point and that concluded the scoring.
Alliance wasn’t subdued, however. The Aviators tried hard to get the ball over again and succeeded in completing the most dramatic pass of the day, a 50-yard effort to Schaefer that took the ball to the Tiger 25. Schaefer was five yards in front of any Tiger when he caught the ball but Bob Cocklin, secondary defender, ran him down.
On the next play Davison was thrown for a 10-yard loss while still trying to pass and that ended the hostilities.
* * *
FOR THE TIGERS, the defensive play of Canary was one of the highlights of their performance. Brown was the outstanding ball carrier. He lugged the leather 10 times for 134 yards.
He had a sweet T.D. run of 58 yards called back late in the fourth quarter because of a clipping penalty. It was one of the fanciest bits of footwork of the evening.
Dave Archibald, the leading ground gainer last week, was stopped cold by Alliance who wouldn’t permit him to get away on his draw play. He only gained 17 yards in five attempts. Duke carried 16 times and gained 57 net yards, who Willie Long, the hot-shot of the first game only had two chances and finished up with a minus one yard
Hawkins was Alliance’s only threat on the ground. He gained 65 net yards on nine carries.
Next week the Tigers will play at Cincinnati Elder. They will leave Massillon Thursday, stay all night in Hamilton Thursday night; hold a brief workout Friday and continue on to Cincinnati where they will stay Friday night in the Gibson hotel. They will return to this city Saturday.
The lineup and summary:
MASSILLON
ENDS – Canary, Houston, Welcher.
TACKLES – Graber, Maier, Schumacher, Kreiger, Whitfield, Hofacre.
GUARDS – Fisher, Roan, Kasunick, Tracy, Ertle.
CENTERS – Spicer, Dowd, Gentzler.
QUARTERBACK – James.
HALFBACKS – Duke, Brown, Long, Radtke, Herring, Washington, Cocklin, Butcher.
FULLBACK – Archibald.
ALLIANCE
ENDS – Polen, Schaefer, Giovannatto, Cowgill, Reynolds, Fryan.
TACKLES – Liber, Long, Tunelius.
GUARDS – McQuilken, Goosby, Welck.
CENTERS – Binkley, Miller.
QUARTERBACK – Davison.
HALFBACKS – Johnson, Bryant, Walker, Muniz, McCallum.
FULLBACKS – Hawkins.
Score by periods:
Massillon 9 6 0 7 22
Alliance 0 0 6 0 6
Touchdowns:
Massillon – Brown 2; James.
Alliance – Schaefer.
Points after touchdown:
Massillon – Archibald, Duke (carried).
Safety:
Massillon (Giovannatto thrown behind goal).
Officials
Referee – Smith (Elyria).
Umpire – Holzbach (Youngstown).
Head Linesman – Wisecup (Cleveland).
Field Judge – Beach (Youngstown).
STATISTICS
Mass. All.
First downs 8 9
Passes attempted 1 16
Passes completed 0 6
Had passes intercepted 1 1
Yards gained passing 0 117
Yards gained rushing 221 110
Total yards gained 221 227
Yards lost 12 65
Net yards gained 209 162
Times punted 4 5
Average punt (yards) 37 37
Yards punts returned by 45 9
Times kicked off 4 3
Average kickoff (yards) 46 44
Yards kickoffs returned by 17 29
Times fumbled 3 2
Lost ball on fumbles 1 0
Times penalized 5 2
Yards penalized 40 20
