To Sumner more than to any one else of the Westcott School was due the fine spirit of caution and determination with which the eleven faced the momentous game with Trowbridge. He had not slackened for a moment his devotion to the team from which, according to Stover, he had been ignominiously fired. He had watched the Trowbridge-Newbury contest with a sharp eye and an open note-book. The newspapers remarked after the game that Trowbridge had gained on end runs and tackle plays and lost on kicks; and that Ricker, the Trowbridge back, was the star of the game. Sumner had not been content with any such general impressions. He had observed how the plays were started behind the line, what holes were relied on for emergencies, who was most likely to fumble punts, and in precisely what way Ricker’s interference formed and hit the line. During the last week of practice, his second team was an imitation Trowbridge, with Trowbridge end runs and genuine Ricker dashes. The Ricker of the Westcott second was alumnus Bill Ellery, Harvard junior, who could cover the two-twenty in twenty-three, and started like a deer. Two active old Westcottites from across the Charles personated Trowbridge tackles, and another guarded right end. Yards practiced his linesmen in breaking straight through, with a spring and a dart and a slap of the open hand against the opponent’s headguard; he forced them to make gripping tackles on the slippery dummy; he taught them how to master, not to kill, the men in front of them; he furnished practicable plays adapted to the powers of the team, and drilled the players in signals until obedience was automatic—but it was Sumner who prepared them for Ricker and the deceptive end runs.
“This last week’s work has been the best of all,” said Yards, the evening before the game. “If Pete’s knee holds out, we ought to be able to put up a pretty good offence, and Sumner’s second has developed our defence wonderfully.”
“And he won’t even make his W!” lamented Harrison.
“No, he won’t!” answered Yards, who could afford to be outspoken now that the end of the season was at hand. “On every point of the game McDowell is better.”
“Then you don’t think there’s any chance for Jack to get in?” asked Harrison, wistfully.
Yards shook his head. “Not unless Mac is laid out or we get a big lead.”
Regular Westcott Defence—Open
(Outside thirty-yard line)
Harrison smiled feebly at the sarcasm of this last suggestion. There was about as much chance of getting a big lead on Trowbridge as that Mac would make half a dozen goals from the field or that Bumpus would find big Hubbard an easy victim; while it was quite within the range of probability that Pete would injure his knee again and deprive the team of its only good punter, or that some accident would befall Eaton or Hardie or some other strong player whose place no one could fill. Subconsciously he shared the view prevalent in school that Trowbridge was likely to win, though he did not admit the possibility even to himself. He had never wholly approved the system of open defence which Yards had adopted from the Harvard theorists. To one used to a solid line of bodies before the ball it seemed a reckless scheme to pull the centre out of his place and put him behind the line, thus leaving open, in the wall of defence, an avenue wide enough for a cart. He could see that this method of resistance strengthened the wings, through which the longest gains are made, and rendered it possible to keep two backs in reserve for on-side kicks and forward passes; but would not this open highway through centre furnish an easy route for heavy plunges? Yards maintained that if Ford and the guards would but watch the play carefully, the gains through centre could be made unprofitably small; yet Harrison’s doubts, though unuttered, were none the less real.
