Tigers Beat Garfield
19-0 In Heavy Rain
Six Ram Fumbles Help
Bengals Square Record For the Season At
5-5-
By CHUCK HESS, JR.
Fumbles are rarely
things to be happy about. But they
certainly brought smiles to the faces of Massillon football fans Friday night.
Their Tigers
recovered all six of the Akron Garfield Golden Rams’ miscues at Tiger stadium
and went on to a 19-0 victory over The Rubber City eleven before a
rain-drenched crowd of 6,600.
The Bengals
converted two of the Rams’ miscues into touchdowns, almost got another
six-pointer on a
third bobble but fumbled in return, set the stage for one of the miscues which
resulted in a touchdown with a fourth recovery and stopped a scoring threat
with a fifth pick-up.
Four of the fumbles
came in the second half when the Tigers had switched to what Coach Leo Strang
called his “mud defense.” It employs a
blitzing eight-man line. The Washington
high school defenders hit Garfield quarterback Jack Hannig before he could hand
off to cause the miscue.
Less the fans think
the steady downpour was a key factor in the fumbling, it must be pointed out
that the Rams fumbled only twice in the first half before Strang switched
defenses.
* * *
BOTH
STRANG and Garfield Coach Dan
(Babe) Flossie agreed that the fumbles were the difference in the game. They also agreed that the loss of
quarterback Tom Valatka, a senior, in the first quarter hampered the Garfield
defense.
This was the third
quarterback we had hurt this year,” Flossie said, “Hannig was in tonight for
the first time since he broke an ankle in the second game.” Flossie paid the Tigers a compliment, “They
played their typical hard-hitting game.
We’re looking forward to meeting them in the Rubber Bowl next
year.” Flossie was also unstinting in
his praise of the “usual fine treatment we got from Massillon.”
Strang commented
that “Flossie had done his usual fine job of coaching the Rams.” The Tigers’ skipper also pointed out,
“Anything can happen on a night like this and almost did in the first half. The weather was a tremendous equalizer.”
He had a compliment
for the fans. “These were the true fans
who were out there tonight.”
The Bengals tried
their old 1958 offense, a pro-type T spread, for the first half, but went back
to the regular unbalanced wing-T after the intermission. The spread is geared for passing, and it was
too wet to do that effectively, witness the completion of only two of 10 passes
for 29 yards. Garfield hit on one of
six for 10 yards.
* * *
THERE
WAS QUITE a bit of difference in
rushing yardage thanks to the Tigers’ blitz.
Massillon had 196 net yards, Garfield 63. The Bengals had their troubles running, losing 40 yards while
Garfield dropped 24.
All of the scoring
was done in the second half, 12 points coming in the third quarter. Senior quarterback Mike Koenig scored two of
the three touchdowns, going through the center from one yard out on both. Sophomore fullback Jim Lawrence went through
the center from eight yards away.
The first touchdown
was set up by two fumbles. On the
second play after the second half kickoff, Garfield fumbled with Tiger senior
Co-Captain Ben Bradley getting his second recovery of the night on the Rams’
39. The Orange and Black ran out of gas
at the Garfield 20.
Lightning struck on
Garfield’s first play after taking over.
Junior wingback Bill Blunt fell on the ball for the Tigers at the
17. WHS then got its first score in
seven plays.
With Koenig carrying
on four of the plays and the Bengals using through-the-middle football, the
score came on a third down play with four minutes remaining in the
quarter. Davis tried off tackle for the
conversion but missed.
Two plays after the
kickoff the Tigers were on their way again.
Sophomore left end Wes Goodnough leaped on a Garfield fumble on the
26. Lawrence’s score came in four
plays. He set up his own TD with a
19-yard run from the 27 to the eight on sweep of left end from a pitchout on
third down. He scored on the next play with the same maneuver . There were 37 seconds left when Lawrence hit
pay dirt. He tried the same play for
the third time on the conversion but missed.
* * *
SENIOR
Will Paisley’s next kickoff
sailed over the head of Rams’ safetyman to the four. Halfback Jon Butash picked it up, but senior (Silky) Sullivan and
sophomore Tom Whitfield brought him to earth in a hurry.
Garfield ran one
play and the quarter ended. On the
first play of the last canto, sophomore Dennis Morgan recovered a fumble on the
five. In three plays the Orange and
Black were on the one. But a fumble
stopped the threat.
Garfield got nowhere
on the next series. Sophomore Henry
Malone went back to the one to punt, kicked the ball straight up into the air
and it came down on the 23. The Tigers took
over, ran one play, got set back for holding and couldn’t get any further than
the 34.
The Rams’ got
nowhere again on the next series.
Malone dropped back to the 24, punted, Blunt grabbed the ball on his 38
and ran it back to his 47. The clock
showed 6:33 remaining when the Tigers took over. Their final score came at 1:25.
Strang put junior
tailback Tom Pope in for a look see and got quite an eyeful. Pope carried on five of the nine plays in
the scoring thrust, picking up valuable yardage.
A 15-yard personal
four penalty also helped.
Koenig went over on
third-and-one. Paisley kicked the
conversion. But a player for each team
was thrown out for battling with their forearms, offsetting penalties resulted
and Paisley was forced to repeat the kick, making it good again.
* * *
GARFIELD got three plays after the kickoff, and the
game was over.
The Golden Rams
threatened only twice in the contest, both times in the first half. After Massillon was unable to move the ball
following the opening kickoff, Garfield took over on a punt on its 24. After 13 plays of tackle-to-tackle football,
which brought four first downs, the Rams appeared to be threatening on the
Tigers’ 19, fourth-and-one.
Garfield made its
first down only to run afoul of a holding penalty which set the Rams back to
the 33, fourth and 15 yards to go.
Valatka went back to punt, was rushed hard, got a bad snap, his foot
missed the ball on the 44.
This was the play on
which Valatak was hurt. He was carried
off the field on a stretcher.
The Tigers used nine
plays with three first downs to get to Garfield’s 14. Senior tailback Ron Davis carried five times for vital
yardage. Lawrence also had a 19-yarder
from the Garfield 45 to the 26.
A five-yard offside
penalty hindered the drive. And Paisley
tried a 32-yard field goal on fourth down, but the attempt was wide to the
left.
Garfield got a break
on its next punt when a Massillon fumble occurred. The Rams got the ball on the Massillon 45 as Butash
recovered. He was hurt on this play and
forced to sit out for awhile.
* * *
THREE
PLAYS later Blunt intercepted a
pass on his five and returned to his 37 only to have a clip called on the
runback. The penalty set Massillon back
to its 11.
The Orange and Black
couldn’t move the ball past the 36.
Paisley went back to punt, got a low snap, ran with the ball and was
tackled on his 26. But Bradley took
care of this threat by recovering a fumble on the seven, four plays later.
Massillon then got
its longest drive of the night going, moving 51 yards to the Garfield 37 when
time ran out in the first half. The
drive took 10 plays. Davis had runs of
14 and 20 yards to help the cause.
The win put the
Tigers back on an even keel again for the season. Their record stands at
5-5 with one game
left to play with Canton Lincoln next Saturday afternoon at the stadium.
Garfield ended the
season with four wins and five losses.
It starts playoff action for the Akron city title next week.
AKRON GARFIELD – 0
Ends – Price, Young,
Wright and Davis.
Tackles – Apely,
Byerly and Kaludy.
Guards – Hollendoner,
Sime, Brockett, Reiter and Quackenbush.
Centers – Kura and
Hamic.
Backs – Valatka,
Hannig, Watson, Carruthers, Bender, Malone,
Cianciola, Adams and Djurcic.
MASSILLON – 19
Ends – McAllister,
Jones, Goodnough, Hose and Franklin.
Tackles – Profant,
Mercer, Clendening, Miller, Frank, Morgan,
Binge and Harmon.
Guards – Castile,
Mathias, Geckler, Swisher, Paflas, McDew,
Rivera, Whitfield and
Larsuel.
Centers – Bradley,
Scassa and Paisley.
Quarterbacks –
Swartz, Koenig and Kanner.
Halfbacks – Davis,
Blunt, Eckard, Getz and Pope.
Fullbacks –
Lawrence, Toles and Sullivan.
Massillon 0 0 12 7 19
Touchdowns:
Massillon – Koenig (two, one-yard runs) and Lawrence
(eight yard run).
Points
after touchdown:
Massillon – Paisley 1 (kick)
Officials
Referee – Tony
Pianowski (Cleveland)
Umpire – Dr. Bob
Schotz (Lorain).
Head Linesman – Jim
Langhurst (Willard).
Field Judge – Al
Franesconi (Akron).
GAME STATISTICS
Mass. Akron
First
downs – rushing 11 4
First
downs – passing 1 1
First
downs – penalties 1 0
Total
first downs 13 5
Yards
gained rushing 236 86
Yards lost
rushing 40 24
Net yards
gained rushing 196 62
Yards
gained passing 29 10
Total
yards gained 225 72
Passes
attempted 10 6
Passes
completed 2 1
Passes
intercepted by 1 0
Times
kicked off 4 1
Kickoff
average (yards) 50.0 36.0
Kickoff
returns (yards) 12 59
Times
punted 1 3
Punt
average (yards) 35.0 22.6
Punt
returns (yards) 11 -7
Had punts
blocked 0 1
Fumbles 2 6
Lost
fumbled ball 1 6
Penalties 3 4
Yards
penalized 25 39