Winthrop Stops K-Land for Title, 14-8

The Stadium was virtually empty yesterday except for two contenders for the intramural house football title and a couple of bundles of post- Yale garbage.

But by day's end, the Winthrop House squad had sparked some excitement even in the void. It pinned a 14-8 defeat on Kirkland, gaining its first intramural football championship and finishing the season 5-1.

K-Land, meanwhile, ended at 4-2. Its only other loss had come on a last-second bomb--also by Winthrop--in the season opener.

But unlike in that game. Winthrop needed no last-minute heroics yesterday. Instead, it built an impressive 14-0 halftime lead and held off a second-half K-Land rally.

On its first possession, Winthrop marched 60 yards behind Tim Bechtold's running and Charlie Slack's passing. Bechtold capped the drive on a one-yard TD run. The score stood at 6-0 when the two-point conversion failed.

The Winthrop defense, which allowed no first downs in the first half, recovered a fumble just one minute following Bechtold's score. Slack immediately found Corman McLeod 34 yards downfield, to put the ball at the K-Land I. But Kirkland stiffened, and after four attempts, Winthrop went back on defense.

Just two plays later, though, Tony Ashman stopped in front of a K-Land receiver and intercepted a Bobby Sherlock pass. With the ball only eight yards from the goal line. Slack went back to work.

On third and goal, he rolled left, started upfield and cut back into the end zone, putting Winthrop up 12-0. Bechtold added the two-points conversion as time run out in the first half.

Both teams traded possession in the third stanza, and then, with seven minutes left in the game. K-Land scored its only points. On fourth down, with the ball at the Winthrop 23, Sherlock fell back to pass. Finding and open receivers, be rolled left and threw a desperation pass to Rollie Olvera. Unable to grasp the ball. Olvera tipped it to a wide-open Gordon Anderson in the end zone. The score became 14-8 when Sherlock found Dwayne Jones for the two-point conversion.