Cagers Bow to Quicker Yale

The score was deadlocked at 62 with 4:11 remaining, but for junior Monroe Trout and the rest of the Harvard men's basketball team the end had just begun.

Eli center Chris Kelly drove past Trout and the Crimson center made contact, committing his fifth personal foul and sending Kelly to the line to break the tie. By the time Kelly finished his 10-point scoring spree. Yale was on its way to a 78-72 dismissal of the Crimson before a rowdy crowd of 1300 at Briggs Athletic Center.

Senior Co-Captain George White replaced the disqualified Trout, only to follow him to the bench a minute later when he fouled--guess who--Kelly going after a rebound. With both White and Trout playing spectator roles and Harvard's height advantage dissipated, the quicker Elis grabbed control. When Kelly hit his sixth straight free throw and his 10th consecutive Yale point, the Elis led by six and the cagers could not recover.

"Chris Kelly won the game for us," Eli Coach Tom Brennan said.

The loss drops Harvard's record to 8-8 overall, 1-4 in the Ivies Yale is now 5-9, 1-2 in league play.

Kelly's heroics wouldn't have been needed if Harvard hadn't had some of its own Junior forward Ken Plutnicki paced the Crimson with career-high 22 points, most coming off baseline jumpers of eight feet or less.

"It seemed when I got the ball the defense kind of slacked off a little bit," Plutnicki said. "I took advantage of it. Tonight's just the result of my going to the basket a little harder," he explained.

Plutnicki didn't do all the scoring, but when Yale shut him out for the final 10 minutes, nobody could fill the hole in the Crimson offense.

The Elis had been sagging on the 6-ft, 9, in Trout throughout the game. The Harvard center owned a two-inch advantage over his tallest opponent, but with four Yale defenders swarming around him whenever he touched the ball, his height surplus proved less than overpowering.

When Trout left the game, the Elis no longer had to concentrate their defensive manpower, and the Harvard offense collapsed. Before Trout's departure, though, the sagging defense had left Crimson guards open for perimenter jump shots.

Freshman David Bernard played a solid 30 minutes off the bench, tallying 12 points on 50 percent shooting. Sophomore guard Bob Ferry, the most consistent cager, chipped in 16 points. Despite a defense that keyed on him only slightly less than it keyed on Trout, Captain Calvin Dixon managed 12 points and a game-high seven assists.

While Yale kept Trout and Dixon pretty much in check, the Crimson defense simply iced junior guard Butch Graves. The frustrated Eli ballhandler connected on just three of 12 attempts from the floor and tallied only 11 points, less than half his 23.3 points per game average, the best in the Ivies.

While the Crimson offense collapsed when Plutnicki stopped hitting, the Yale attack had at least three separate leaders at different points in the game. Gerry Parker made six of seven from the field, four of them in the first half, and 10 of Kelly's 14 points came as the only Eli tallies over a three-minute period Yale's biggest gun, though, was forward Steve Leondis, who crashed through the Crimson defense for 21 points.

The cagers have less than a day to tend to their wounds. Brown storms into Briggs to night at 7.30 p.m.

Yale (78)

Graves 3-12 5-9 11, Williams 3-6 2-3 8, Kelly 3-5 8-8 14, Leondis 9-17 3-5 21, Parker 6-7 0-1 12, Jacob 4-7 0-0 8, Hill 1-3 0-0 2, Boasberg 0-0 2-2 2, Foley 0-0 0-0 0, Hyacinthe 0-0 0-0 0, Petela 0-1 0-0 0, Totals 29-58 20-28 78.

Harvard (72)

Dixon 6-16 0-0 12, Ferry 6-11 4-4 16, Trout 2-5 4-6 8, Plutnicki 8-14 6-8 22, White 1-2 0-0 2, Wildes 0-3 0-0 0, Bernard 6-12 0-0 12, Boyle 0-0 0-0 0, Totals 29-63-14-18 72.

Haltime score--Yale. 38-32.

Total fouls--Harvard 23. Yale 15 Fouled out--Trout. White Rebounds--Yale 31 (Kelly 81, Harvard 29 (Plutnicki 12 (Assists--Harvard 14 Dixon 7). Yale 11 (Graves 4) A--1800.