Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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THE ASHBURIAN 29 RUGBY 1946 L OOKING in retrospect over Ashburyis football season 1946, we find we have a season to be proud of even if we did lose our matches with Lower Canada College and Bishopls College School and, consequently, the B.C.S. Old Boys' Cup. Being the victor is not the only source of delight in our tasksg this oft repeated statement is definitely true as far as last seasons football is concerned. We started off the football season with a good deal of con- fidence in our hopes of winning the Old Boys' Cup. N o team could have had a better coach than we did and added to this we were able to start practising three weeks before L.C.C. and B.C.S. as their school re-opening was delayed on account of polio. Although most of the stars of our 1945 team had left, new players seemed to be developing fast. Howie Clark and Walter Scott were elected Captain and Vice-Captain respectively, happy and logical choices. The first few football practices were hampered by extremely hot weather and the first two weeks were spent in light kit running through the plays, most of these were developed from the more successful of those used in 1945. Passes and the middle bucks dominated our offensive plays. We had about a month of practising before our first game. lt was very difficult to arrange for any teams to play Ashbury since our exhibition games had to be played on week-days and other local schools had a regular schedule to be played on week-ends. and even some we were able to arrange were literally washed out by rain. We were, however, able to arrange two games with the kind co-operation of Eric Roy g the 'first of these we won 10-0 and the second we lost 7-6. In the first of these games the touchdowns were scored by Dreyfus and Clark. The calling of the plays by Scott, Weavers long passes, bucks by Clark and Sosa and general good tackling were all features of this game. The first game was played a little more than two weeks before the game with Bishop's College School. Mr. Glass wanted two more exhibition games before the 'tclassicf' so the next week-end we played two games. On October 25th the Ashbury football team surged ahead to one of its most impressive victories. The opposition. the Lower Town Terrors, was overwhelmed by a score of 40-0. The team gained a lot of confidence by winning this game, even though we knew that the opposition we would meet in future games of the

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SIX THE ASHBURIAN FIRST FOOTBALL FIELD 'UND F01 YI'lS.XI,I, FIICLD

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30 THE ASHBURIAN season would be much more stern. Clark scored two touchdowns by means of his unstoppable bucks. and both were converted by Weaver. Scott scored three touchdowns, one out of two being converted by Weaver and another extra point being scored on a pass, Scott to Knight. An interesting highlight of the game was Scott's 110 yard run for his second touchdown. Weaver and Hall fthe latter play- ing in the absence of Hamiltonj each scored one touchdown, with both converts failing. Hall's game was particularly good, consider- ing that it was the first time he had ever played in the backfield, as an added highlight to this performance, he intercepted a lateral pass and ran about forty yards to score his touchdown. Finally, in accounting for the fortieth point, an opposing back was tackled behind his touchdown line for a rouge. The second game was played on Saturday, October 26. This time we were beaten by Eric Roy's Rough Riders f although not the same teamj, 7-6. This game served its purpose by taking from us any over-confidence that may have existed. Our touchdown was made by Howie Clark on one of those bucks, but the convert failed. The extra point was scored by Weaver when he kicked the ball over their deadline for an automatic rouge. The opposing team was able to do similarly, and they beat us by converting their touchdown. At last, on November lst, the classical contest between Ashbury and B.C.S. took place. The team, as well as a few Ashbury spec- tators, travelled to B.C.S. by bus. There were three breakdowns, a fact which was not only annoying to everyone, but also tended to increase the restlessness of the tense, but not nervous team. The final score was 10-5 in favour of B.C.S. The weather was extremely bad, with intermittent showers occurring all day, and consequently turning the field into a quagmire. Ashbury lost the toss and kicked off. Buck Weaver. however, kicked the ball badly, and it only went about ten yards. After about four plays, the B.C.S. team had advanced the ball to our thirty yard line. The next play was a long pass, com- pleted for a touchdown. The convert failed, being beautifully blocked by Paterson. Everything seemed to happen in those first few minutes, and not until the last quarter did our morale fully recover. One of the fac- tors in keeping up our spirit was Clark's and Sosa's bucks, which never failed to gain some ground. In the second quarter the Ashbury team began to resemble the team that it really was. On one occasion, when the B.C.S. team had kr-ked the ball over our line, Scott ran it back forty-five yards. '