The Vineyarders closed out their most successful season to date with a sparkling 5-2 record, beating Nantucket, after beating them soundly the week before on the Vineyard. Gordon Bassett and John Bunker rushed the Nantucket quarterback, Vaughan Machado, in a second period pass play from the Nantucket 30. In a play described by Assistant Coach Francis Pachico as “The most unbelievable play of the year,” Machado threw the ball away, from about his own fifteen. Only he got turned around under pressure, and threw to his own goal line. The Vineyarders’ captain, Roy DeBettencort, was after the ball, but he couldn’t get to it until it had gone out of the Nantucket end zone, making for an automatic safety and two points, instead of the touchdown most of the Vineyard gang thought they had.

 

So it was 2 points instead of 6, but it was enough. It was no day for football, pouring rain and windy, and neither team could move the ball for a score. The overall pattern was similar to the previous week’s 24-0 Vineyard win, though the score doesn’t show it. Ralston “Y. A.” Jackson, at the helm of the way, moved his team to the Nantucket 3, the 5, the 4 and the 8, but just couldn’t get the ball over the goal line.

 

 

The Nantucketers couldn’t get by the Vineyard’s purple and white wall, and, as a matter of fact, never crossed over into the Island territory. Machado tried a desperate pass offense, but the weather was against him, and the Vineyarders’ defense was equal to last week’s. Nantucket didn’t have it, and the best thing they could take home from the field was the low score.

 

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football crew has been plagued by bad weather this season, four out of their seven games being played, for the most part, in wetness or wild winds. The cost to the team this weekend was three days. They left Friday, played Saturday - the game delayed from 10:30 to 11:30 because the officials had to come by chartered plane - and then had to stay over until 2:30 on Sunday because the Saturday boat didn’t run.

 

It’s been a god season for the Vineyarders. Asked whether the Nantucketers pass offense fouled mainly because of the weather or because of a good Vineyard defense, Coach Dan McCarthy replied that he liked to think it was the defense. The record of the season bears him out. He and Coach Pachico have worked an eager, talented bunch of boys into a good football squad, and the future, for school and fans alike, looks exciting.