Army Intercepted on the March, 24-21

Saturday at the Stadium: it's the second play of the fourth quarter. Army has reversed the early Crimson momentum completely, storming back from two touchdowns down to take a 21-14 lead.

And the Cadets threaten to score again--until safety Mike Dixon picks off a pass on his own 25-yard line and sprints down the sideline to put. Harvard right back in the game, which it went on to win, 24-21.

"You could call it the turning point of the game," linebacker Kevin Garvin said later of his roommate's big play.

A fair enough assessment, with the benefit of hindsight. But how about this turning point of the game, the key play in the 28-14 Army victory that almost was:

It's six minutes into the second quarter, Harvard leads by a pair of TDs and hopes to make it 17-0. Jim Villanueva, who hit from 45 yards out against Columbia, tries for another personal best, this time a 47-yarder. He gets the distance, but it's wide to the right.

Army takes over at its own 30. Sophomore Rob Healy throws a bomb to split end Scott Spellmon. Army's on the Crimson 24. Another pass, to tight end Rob Dickerson, all alone near the goal line, and Army's on the scoreboard.

As it happened, Dixon was in on that turning point as well. "The first touchdown was mine," he said. "I got sucked up on the run," allowing Dickerson to get free.

But he managed to space his crucial plays, bad and good, so as to leave the momentum with Harvard when it counted. The plays separated the game's three chapters--the first, which Harvard won, 14-0, the second, which Army owned by a 21-0 count, and the last, in which the Crimson sored the final 10 points.

Halfback Mark Vignali got Harvard moving in that first segment. It seemed on the opening drive as if quarterback Chuck Colombo's toughest decision was whether to get the ball to him via handoff or pitchout. The Crimson junior carried 11 times on the opening drive (he set a school record with 39 carries on the day), finally going around the right side from the three-yard line for the first six points.

Harvard struck again on its first possession of the second quarter. Starting from the Army 22 following a weak Cadet punt and an interference call on the Black Knights, it took only four plays before Steve Ernst ran it in from the eight.

But the very next Crimson drive ended in Villanueva's off-target kick. After the Healy-to-Dickerson connection two plays later, the field tilted in the other direction.

Always Rushing

When it tried to retaliate for Army's first strike, the home team couldn't manage a first down. On the Cadet's ensuing possession, they moved into a hurry-up offense, forsaking huddles in order to keep the Crimson defense off balance.

It definitely worked at first. With various defenders all calling the Army offensive setups at once, the Cadets picked up 31 yards on three plays against the confused Crimson. When linebacker Kevin Garvin took over after a few plays. Harvard settled down some-what, though only a tackle from behind by John Dailey kept Cadet flanker Jarvis Hollingsworth from tying it up off a Healy pass on the half's final play.

The visitors wanted to time forging ahead after the intermission. They marched 30 yards on their first two drives, primarily due to the unstoppable rushing of tailback Elton Akins, moving to a 21-14 advantage. Akins even completed a pass, taking a handoff from Healy and hitting a diving Hollingsworth on the Harvard three.

Another One

But with Army looking to score on its third straight possession, Dixon grabbed the spotlight. Healy had left with a shoulder injury near the end of the third quarter: when his replacement. Bill Turner, tried to hit tight end Mark Triplett near the sideline for a short gainer, Dixon just stepped in the way for the ninth-longest interception return in Crimson history.

Villanueva had a chance to break the tie with a second 47-yard field goal attempt--which also went far enough but to the right. But the next Crimson drive left him with a more manageable task: with 5:58 showing on the clock, he split the uprights to give Harvard the 24-21 edge.

With less than three minutes left, Army started a last-gasp drive, but when Turner lofted a pass too close to Garvin, the senior linebacker reached up to make the one-handed interception that put the game away.

Despite Garvin's strong game, in steadying the defense against the hurry-up Army attack and in nabbing the late pass, Crimson Coach Joe Restic's chief concern remains the injuries to the linebacker Garvin replaced, Andy Nolan, and several other first-stringers. Defensive lineman Bruno Perdoni and Barry Ford sat out Saturday's contest, as well as cornerback Brian Bergstrom and linebacker and Captain Joe Azelby.

THE NOTEBOOK: One stat very clearly in the Crimson's favor was time of possession--36:06 for Harvard, 23:54 for Army...Harvard gained 253 yards on the ground, but only 60 in the air...Colombo played the entire game and completed eight of 14 passes for 60 yards, with one interception....Harvard will take to the road for the first time next Saturday, travelling to Ithaca to meet winless Cornell....Defensive Coordinator George Clemens formerly held the same post at West Point....Defensive end Mark Mead also spent time in the enemy camp, living at West Point for seven years when his father, a colonel, taught there.