Exactly What They Needed

HANOVER. N.H.--If either quarterback was expected to win this game with his feet, it wasn't Dartmouth's Rick Stafford.

The Crimson's Jack Riordan was the one who had amassed 89 yards rushing in only a half of a game. And when Coach Joe Rests tapped him to start Saturday in place of the in lured Donnie Allard Riordan responded with 67 yards on 16 carries including a 15 yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter.

Stafford; on the other hand, suffered a knee injury in 1981 that left him with limited mobility, and it was no surprise when his eight carries against Harvard netted him netted him minus-six yards.

Among Staff's unproductive keepers, however, was a single run that proved as disastrous to Harvard as any other play in the game.

Eight and a half minutes remained on the clock when Harvard's Jim Villaneuva a booted his second field goal of the afternoon to narrow Dartmouth's lead to 7-6. His ensuing kickoff ended up in the end zone, and Stafford and his mates took over at their own 20.

Routines

And they remained here for the next two plays. On first down tailback Pete Lavery appeared to have found an opening to the left, but Harvard lineman Joe Margolis lunged for him at the last second, bringing him down at the line of scrimmage. Fullback--Rich Weissman followed by running directly into a crowd.

Facing third and 10, Stafford dropped back to throw. The Dartmouth QB frantically checked off each one of his mobbed receivers, and then in desperation, began to head for an opening to his left.

The whole run seemed to occur in slow motion--as though. Stafford deliberately plowed along in order to prolong the suspense. Crimson cornerback John Daily finally stopped him at the Dartmouth 30-exactly at the point of the first down.

Another man probably would have gone the length of the field in the same amount of time.

But Stafford's lethargic pace and the fact that he just reached the first down made the whole thing all the more unbearable for Harvard.

The run set up Dartmouth's winning score, a Stafford 69-yard TD pass to flanker John Olejniczak three plays later. But Stafford still had not delivered his partings shot.

Harvard scored on Riordan's run with 3:32 left in the game to pull within a field goal of an undefeated. Ivy League record. On Dartmouth's next possession, the Green faced third and a foot at its own 39, needing another first down to run down the clock, which showed 2:30.

Stafford took the snap and immediately leaped over the middle for a one-yard gain, the first down, and ultimately. Dartmouth's first win of 1982. Ivy Standings   Ivy  All Penn  3-0  4-1 Harvard  2-1  3-2 Princeton  2-1  2-3 Brown  2-2  3-2 Yale  1-1  2-3 Dartmouth  1-1  1-4 Columbia  1-3  1-4 Cornell  0-3  0-5