Second Team Nearly Outscores First in Intrasquad Scrimmage

All the wrong people looked good Saturday in the intrasquad football scrimmage.

The first string just did edge out the second, 10-7, with a 43-yard field goal in the last seven seconds of play in a 30-minute contest played under regular game conditions.

That final three-pointer by fine little place-kicker Tommy Wynne, ended twenty-eight embarassing minutes of scoreless silence by the first string offense.

Most of the standouts were white-shirted second-stringers too. Quarterback Pete Berg moved his squad with the kind of ease that must have made starter Ric Zimmerman jealous. In the first quarter, Berg marched his men to the one and lost the ball on downs. Ten minutes later he took them to the seven, where a field goal try was blocked.

Berg's halfback Ray Hornblower was the sensation of the day. The shifty little speedster ran back kicks and took off several times on exciting runs from scrimmage.

Gatto Scores

The man Hornblower backs up, someone called Vic Gatto, had a fine day too. On the third play from scrimmage, Gatto burst up the middle, slipping out of the grasp of one or two second team linemen, then shot into the clear and went all the way, 70 yards, for a score. Second-stringers claim their defensive signals got fouled up.

Looking toward the future (the regular season starts with Lafayette this Saturday), it seems that the Crimson's trouble spots are a weak offensive line and a defense that just can't seem to get together.

True Don Chiofaro and John Tyson had slight injuries and did not play. But Harvard's highly-touted defense has not lived up to its press notices, either Saturday or in last week's scrimmage against the University of Massachusetts (which the Crimson won, four touch-downs to two).

When a second string nearly outplays a first string, it is hard to say whether that bodes ill or good. It could mean that some established members of the team should not be starters, or maybe that they won't be starters for much longer.

Or maybe Coach John Yovicsin said it best after the scrimmage: "It is impossible, I realize, to look good all around, when you're playing against yourself."