Interference and Other Football Stories Part 8

"Mack--drop back and take that guy out!"

"Okay!" answered Mack, dropping at once to the rear as Frank raced past him.

The Pomeroy tackler loomed up almost at once and Mack, whose charge down the field as Frank's interferer had been fraught with one spectacular piece of frenzied blocking after another, now completed his task by hurling himself in front of the last threat to Frank's sensational touch down dash from kick-off. Tackler and interferer went down in a thudding pile as Grinnell's star halfback crossed Pomeroy's goal line and triumphantly touched the ball down. Then the field rocked with sound.

"What a run!" gasped Dave Morgan, waving his crutch. "And what a piece of interfering! Mack sure produced that time! Didn't look like he was handing the game to Pomeroy then, did it?... Come on, gang--this old game isn't lost yet!"

But a great groan went the rounds as the pa.s.s from center was bad and Frank missed the kick for extra point. Score: Pomeroy, 14, Grinnell, 6!

"If we make another touchdown and kick the goal, we'll still be a point behind!" grieved a Grinnell supporter. "There goes our outside chances of at least tying the score!"

"Now you're playing _football_!" were Frank's words to Mack as he shook his fist at him and then turned on other scowling team members with the demand that they show a little fight.

"This is not enough!" Mack kept repeating. "I've got to do more!...

This is not enough!"

Grinnell kicked off and it was a frenzied Mack Carver who raced down the field to bowl over interferers and down the Pomeroy man with the ball on his eighteen yard line.

"Yea, Carver!... Yea, yea, yea!"

"Hold 'em!" ordered Quarterback Bert Henley. "Make 'em kick!"

The Grinnell linesmen, battered from the pounding they had received, dug their cleats into the turf and held for three downs with Pomeroy being able to gain but two yards. Dizzy Fox then dropped back to his five yard line to punt.

"Block that kick!" was the cry.

And, with the snapping of the ball, Grinnell opened up a hole. It existed but for a moment as the lines strained against one another ...

but, in that moment, Grinnell's right guard was through. He hurried the kick, all but blocking it so that the ball went out of bounds on Pomeroy's thirty yard mark.

"All right, gang!" shouted Quarterback Bert Henley. "What are we going to do about this?"

"We're going through!" answered the team to a man.

Coach Edward sent in three fresh linesmen with the aim of aiding the offensive drive. The scoreboard read: eight minutes to play.

To Mack's astonishment, he was given the ball on the first play, a drive through tackle. He plunged for four yards and, heard the Grinnell stands yell his name. Frank was good for two yards ... Steve was good for four more and a first down on Pomeroy's twenty yard mark!

"That's. .h.i.tting 'em!" commended Bert. "Keep it up, you guys! How about you, Mack? Do you want to see us win or don't you?"

Mack glared. "Just gimme that ball!"

Fighting and squirming his way through, Mack made another four yards.

"Four yards, Carver!" the stands commenced shouting.

But Pomeroy rose up to turn fullback Steve Hilliard back at the line of scrimmage.

Third down and six to go. Frank Meade--on a triple pa.s.s behind the line--with Mack as interference, breaking out around left end! The play was beautifully executed but Mack, as he turned the end, stumbled so that Frank b.u.mped him and was thrown off his stride. Before he could recover, Pomeroy tacklers were in on him so that he gained but a yard.

"There you go!" razzed Bert, shaking a blackened fist in Mack's face, "Spilling the bucket again!"

"Shut up, Bert!" snapped Frank. "Signals!"

"Signals!" Bert repeated.

Mack stiffened. Bert was calling the trick play once more on which he had made the poor toss to Frank. This time the play must be good.

Here they were on Pomeroy's fifteen yard line and fourth down with five yards to go.

"If I bungle _this_ one...!" Mack thought, and bit his lips.

Berths toss to him was wide but Mack reached out one hand and pulled the ball to him as he ran. He shot the ball on a quick lateral toss to Frank and fairly sobbed his relief when he saw that the toss couldn't have been better. Frank faded, holding the pigskin ready to pa.s.s, as Mack now turned his attention to helping block Pomeroy men who were trying to get through at him. In this he was successful, going down under two Pomeroy linesmen as Frank shot a pa.s.s low and to the right--over the end zone. There--racing into the end zone, was right end Eddie Miller. He touched the ball with his finger tips, juggled and caught it, being almost immediately buried beneath an avalanche of tacklers.

"Yea!" roared the Grinnell stands. "A touchdown!"

Pomeroy, a greatly sobered team, lined up in front of its own goal posts. The team charged viciously and Frank, with Bert upending the ball, again missed the place-kick for extra point.

Score: Pomeroy, 14; Grinnell, 12.

"Well, we might as well lose by two points as one," philosophized a Grinnell supporter. "Nice comeback we staged ... but too late to do us much good. Only four minutes left to play."

Grim-faced Grinnell warriors eyed each other. Could they possibly regain possession of the ball and drive down the field for a third touchdown and s.n.a.t.c.h a victory from almost certain defeat? The odds were overwhelmingly against them. It had been a most spectacular and pulsating game from the standpoint of spectator and player alike. Both teams were now near exhaustion from their offensive and defensive efforts.

"Brother Carl will certainly know his team's been in a ball game,"

thought Mack, feeling somewhat relieved that he had at last performed creditably after several wretched blunders. Inwardly, however, there lurked a condemning conscience which impressed upon him that no performance save one which might lead to a Grinnell victory could ever suffice. This feeling took precedence over a flash of satisfaction that his brother was apparently to retain his coaching position, if it actually had hung upon the outcome of this game. "But I mustn't think of this at all!" Mack told himself at once. "My att.i.tude has got to be like Dave suggested. I've simply got to forget any family tics. I'm playing to beat Pomeroy ... not my brother!"

Grinnell kicked off to Pomeroy and the visitors indicated at once that they intended to retain possession of the ball until the end of the game if they possibly could. Several first downs in succession ate up valuable seconds and took the ball to Grinnell's forty-five yard line.

"Hold 'em!" begged and ranted quarterback Bert Henley. "What's the matter with you guys? Gone to pieces?... Get in there and _hold that line_!"

More reserves came das.h.i.+ng out from the side lines to help bolster a Grinnell forward wall which had taken plenty of punishment. These fresh men drove into the Pomeroy line on the first play and opened a hole through which Mack Carver darted. He hit an interferer, sent him spinning and broke up a pa.s.s behind the line. The ball went wild with Mack following into Pomeroy's backfield after it. Three wide-eyed Pomeroy men were on his heels as he dived for the pigskin and rolled over with it clutched against his stomach. The three Pomeroy men landed on him almost together.

"Grinnell's ball on Pomeroy's forty yard line!" announced the referee, and Grinnell supporters went crazy.

"Great stuff, Mack!" shouted Coach Edward from the sidelines, and Mack, hearing, could only gulp his joy. The game might be lost but if Coach Edward only could believe he'd done his best despite the two glaring misplays ... errors, at least, which he, himself, could never excuse...!

"Your kid brother's playing quite a game out there!" observed a faculty member to Pomeroy's coach who fidgeted nervously.

"_Quite_ a game?" was the response. "A whale of a game!... I never saw a kid play in worse luck the first three quarters ... but now he's making his own breaks ... and am I glad there's only a minute left to play...?!!"

Mack was thumped joyously on the back by fellow players as he staggered back in position, holding his side. He had held onto the ball at all costs and despite a scrambled attempt on the ground to wrest it away from him.

With only time for about two plays, Quarterback Henley called for a pa.s.s. Frank Meade faded back and shot a long one. Mack, breaking through with other possible receivers, had not expected to be singled out, but wheeled just in time--after getting free--to hear the crowd yell and see the pigskin coming straight at him. He reached up and picked it out of the air on Pomeroy's twenty-five yard line, being hit before he could move by Dizzy Fox.

"Yea, Carver!" yelled the stands.

Mack, all but bewildered by the way plays had revolved about him, was pushed into the huddle as time-keepers consulted their watches.

"What'll it be?" demanded Bert. "Shall we chance another pa.s.s?"