The game with Nantucket on Saturday turned out to be one of the roughest that the Martha’s Vineyard footballers have encountered. Judging by the number of injuries suffered by the Island boys, it was the roughest, with the principal Vineyard players seemingly one by one being removed from the game as the advantage irrevocably turned toward the Nantucketers, who finally defeated their visitors 33 to 20.

 

Coach Kelley’s men performed during the first half of the game with what has become their traditional good form, playing in swift pace and hard fought fashion. When the Nantucket team took the opening kickoff and under the leadership of the combination of George Luce, Nate Thurston and Jimmy Day, travelled fifty seven yards for a touchdown, the Vineyard team came right back at their hosts. John McBride, picking up a fumbled kick on his own ten, ran the ball to his forty-five.

 

The Vineyard drive, however, came to an end on the Nantucket thirty-one when the Nantucketers, holding their ground, took the ball on downs. With the ball in their possession once more the hosts, with one successful pass after another, headed again for pay dirt. This second score was capped by the extra point made good by Duce. The score for Nantucket was 13, for the Vineyard, nothing.

 

 

But the tide then turned, when the Vineyard’s John Morris took Nantucket’s kickoff on his own fifteen and travelled eighty-five spectacular yards for a score, a feat made possible by some mighty nice blocking by his teammates. The try for the conversion of the extra point failed, and the score was 13 to 6, the Vineyard trailing.

 

The Island boys were not through though. A little while later they got the ball again after Nantucket lost it on downs and put on the pressure again from their own forty. The pressure continued until Leigh Carroll plummeted over right guard from the Nantucket two to a touchdown. Morris scored the extra point on an end run. Thus, the game was all tied up at 13 to 13 in the second quarter.

 

During the remainder of the play in the first half, the Vineyard’s Morris strained a stomach muscle that was to keep him out of play for the rest of the game.

 

The loss of Morris, however, did not stifle the Vineyard spirit, for in the third period they recovered a Nantucket fumble on their own thirty-five. Carroll took the ball to the forty, hitting through center, and McBride, on a delayed buck over left guard, left the Nantucketers behind as he bolted sixty yards for a third Vineyard touchdown. Hearn’s pass to John Downs was completed and rang out the extra point. The Vineyard was out in front 20 to 13.

 

But the third period proved to be the casualty period so far as the Vineyard was concerned. Hearn dislocated a thumb. Steve Parker had his nose broken and was taken to the Nantucket Hospital. Don Amaral received a whopper of a charlie horse. Herb Combra and Carroll suffered badly bruised knees. And later McBride landed in the twisted ankle department.

 

Trailing, the Nantucketers came back with force and with small yardage gains made their way to the Vineyard nine. A Thurston pass to Topham was good for a score, and Duce’s plunge across the line was good for the extra point. And affairs were all tied up once more, at 20 to 20.

 

Reduced drastically in strength in the final period, the Vineyard team was hard put defensively as the Nantucketers bulldozed their way through the Vineyard line for another score, accompanied by the extra point, giving the lead back to the hosts with a score of 27 to 20.

 

In the final minutes of the game, taking that ball on the Vineyard thirty-five, where a punt by McBride was downed, the Nantucketers in three plays landed once more over the goal line, the last score of the game, much to the disappointment of the more than eighty Vineyard fans who had flown to Nantucket to witness the final game of the Vineyard football schedule.

 

Coach Kelley stated that he was pleased with his boys, all of them playing to the best of their ability. “If it wasn’t for the injuries to the key players, I honestly feel we would have won the game,” he maintained.