Vicious Crimson Offense Outguns Brown, 35-32

Pat McInally and Jimmy Stoeckel rewrote a substantial portion of the Harvard record book Saturday, pairing up on 13 pass completions for 178 yards and 2 touchdowns to enable the Crimson to outslug an explosive Brown squad, 35-32, in Providence, R.I.

McInally, who set a Harvard single-season pass reception record a week ago, was phenomenal on Saturday. Defying double, and often triple, coverage, the lanky split receiver ran over around and through the frantic Brown secondary en route to shattering three Harvard receiving records and tying an Ivy mark.

McInally's 13 receptions broke the Harvard mark of 11 set by Carter Lord in 1967, and tied the Ivy single-game standard set by Brown's own Chip Regine in 1972. His 13 catches boosted his Harvard single-season reception mark to 53, and moved him within 9 of Lord's career mark of 62. McInally also broke another Lord standard--for single-season touchdown receptions. With 2 scoring grabs against Brown, McInally moved one head of Lord's single-season mark.

First Place

Stoeckel completed 22 out of 37 attempts for 274 yards and 2 touchdowns Saturday, moving into first place for total passing yardage both on the single season and career list. In eight games this year, Stoeckel has gained 1285 yards in the air. The old record held by Ric Zimmerman was 1143 set in 1967.

The Crimson signal caller also has gained 1991 career passing yards, 20 yards more than Zimmerman's old mark of 1790.

In completions Stoeckel now has 101 for 180 for the season (old record, held by Zimmerman: 62 for 139 in 1967) and 155 for 287 in his career (old mark: Zimmerman's 114 for 244).

Despite the records, Saturday's game was a wild and explosive affair. With both defenses off on an inexplicable sabbatical, the offensive firepower put points on the scoreboard for both teams with the speed of a ping pong match.

Brown struck first, jumping to a quick 13-0 lead on a Dennis Coleman keeper and a blocked punt. Coleman, the running half of the Bruin's tandem quarterback team, drove Brown 50 yards the first time the Bruins had the ball. With Harvard keying on Coleman's running talents, the Bruin quarterback twice picked up valuable yardage with pesky over-the-middle passes, to extend the drive. Then, on second and goal, Coleman sliced through left tackle for the score.

Later in the quarter, Brown broke through the Crimson front wall to rebuff Stoeckel's punt and send it bouncing into the endzone. There Ron Watt covered the ball for the score.

Brown maintained this lead until late in the second quarter. Then, in a one-minute-15-second period, the Crimson put two touchdowns on the scoreboard to take a lead it would never relinquish. The first came on a masterful 93-yard, 12-play drive choreographed by Stoeckel. On five of those plays, Stoeckel sought McInally, and four times the potent aerial combination clicked, including the scoring thrust from nine yards out.

Ping Pong Scoring

With the beginning of the second half, the ping-pong scoring began in earnest, as Harvard and the Bruins matched touch-downs three times.

Brown's scoring resurgence was sparked by the other half of the Brown quarterback team-passer Pete Beatrice. Beatrice picked the porous Crimson secondary apart in the second half, hitting for 152 yards and a touchdown.

But Stoeckel and McInally, with an ample assist from backup fullback Phil Allen more than met the challenge. Allen, who picked up 118 yards in 20 carries, caught 3 passes for 29 yards and scored a touchdown, replaced Neal Miller. Miller left the game with a head injury after gaining 85 yards in the first half.

Harvard got second-half points from Stoeckel's (1-yard quarterback) sneak at the 2:08 mark in the third quarter, McInally (8 yards on a pass from Stoeckel--his second of the afternoon), and Allen who bulled into the endzone from 1 yard out in the fourth quarter.

Breakdown

For the second time in three weeks, Harvard's once-solid defense broke down, leaving the Crimson to rely on the ability of the offense to outgun the opposition. And as in the game against Penn two weeks ago, Stoeckel and McInally proved they're the best guns in the East. Ivy League at a Glance Harvard  5-1 Dartmouth  5-1 Penn  4-2 Yale  4-2 Brown  3-3 Cornell  2-4 Columbia  1-5 Princeton  0-6