LATE START HELD BACK TEAM

Saturday's victory over Columbia marked the end of a season which, although not as satisfactory as last year's was none the less noteworthy for the remarkable improvement in the team, and the steady building up of a machine which had just begun to show its full strength at the close of the season.

This year marked the beginning of a new system in intercollegiate soccer, the playing of the championship series in the fall. This fact coupled with the late opening of college and the resulting late start of practice, found the team in a rather ragged condition for its first three league games, which came during the first two weeks of November.

With only two practice games as preparation, the University team met Princeton in its first league game on November 6, and came through with a 1 to 1 tie. So it was at Ithaca on November 9, when it played Cornell in a hard snow-storm, the score being again 1 to 1. On November 14, however, the team suffered its first and only defeat, Pennsylvania winning by the score of 2 to 0.

Throughout these early games the team had not begun to play together. Every man was playing for himself, and the team play, especially the accuracy in passing and shooting, so essential in scoring, was lacking. With the Yale game, however, the team took a marked brace, winning easily 3 to 1. Haverford was defeated 1 to 0, and finally Columbia, 2 to 0. If there had been more time for practice before the beginning of the championship series, it is almost certain that the University team would have duplicated the record made last year, and again secured the league championship.

The outlook for next year is on the whole rather good. Baker, Blackmur, Chubb, Fenn, Grinnell, Captain J. C. Jennings, Nichols and Withington, will be lost by graduation, leaving J. M. Jennings, Moffat, Norris, O'Neill, Ricketson and Weld as a nucleus for next season's eleven. An abundance of second string and 1918 players should render the task of filling the vacant places easy.