Bruce Munro accepted a cigarette and stretched back contentedly in one of the overstuffed armchairs in the Dillon Field House Lounge. He blew a cloud of smoke towards the follow with the camera who had just photographed the varsity soccer team and began reminiscing about the one really bright spot in the Harvard-Yale weekend, the booters' 3 to 2 overtime upset over the Elis.
"Grads as far back as '09 were calling me up about it," he chuckled delightedly. "That was really a good game to win. A Yale victory always makes a season a success, especially if it's an upset, but I liked this one best because it gave us a 500 record.
"It was a tough one for Yale to lose," he continued. "Not only did it spoil a perfect season for Jack Marshall (the Yale coach), but deprived all the players from getting major Y's." Like Harvard, Yale awards major letters to an undefeated team in a minor sport.
"Of course, the same thing happened to me two years age with the lacrosse team," Munro said, "when Yale ruined an undefeated season for us. So this time it was sort of revenge." He smiled--"Revenge for last year's 1 to 0 soccer loss in overtime, too," he added.
Yale ended the season with an 8-1-2 record, the best in the New England Intercollegiate Soccer League, but they could salvage only a three-way tie for the Big Three championship.
The biggest blow to Yale, however, was the fact that this defeat knocked it out of contention for the national championships.
The Whole Team's Best Game
Munro named goalie Pete Briggs and halfback Carey McIntosh as the outstanding players in the Yale game.
"The whole team played its best game but Lou Tiger did a remarkable job at fullback for one who hadn't played much all season," he went on, "and in the final overtime Win Knowlton played his best soccer of the year. Of course Charlie Ufford was great all season," he added.
Munro also commended regular goalie Roger Taylor for asking to be kept out of the game because he felt his injury might hurt the chances of the team as a whole. "Dana Getchell's penalty shot was perfectly placed--low, hard, and in the corner. He beat Parker (the Yale goalie) completely, even though he was already starting towards that side," Munro said.
Zane Actually Scored
Though Munro thought at the time George Baker had scored Harvard's first goal off a Yale fullback's shins, it turned out later that halfback Craig Zane had actually made the centering pass that ricochetted into the nets. "At any rate, whoever scored it, scored a clean goal," Munro said happily.
"I don't know why we couldn't have played that way all season," he said in retrospect. "It started right off badly in the first loss to Williams, and of course we played a tough schedule. But that wasn't the real reason. We lost games we had no business losing--Princeton, for instance. We never seemed to have the incentive. Of course, the fact that the same 11 men were never working as a unit is demoralizing to any outfit," he explained.
No Scoring Punch
"We were always hunting for a scoring punch and changing the lineup. For a while there we had two separate lines, and then two separate inside combinations, and of course the center forwards were changing with the weather. When Frank Davies took over in the latter part of the season, we finally won a few games. He's small and hasn't much power, but he thinks well and shoots well, and is a good feeder."
With nine of his first string players leaving Munro is faced with a tough problem next fall, too. "We are still hunting for a goal-hungry center forward," he said, "and the freshmen don't seem to have it either. The most they ever scored was three goals in any one game."
"We have a lot of work to do," he warned, "but next year we won't come out any worse than this, and that Yale game should help." He winked and got up off the chair still chuckling over last Friday's upset.
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