Advertisement

Lining Them Up

The Yale polo team is going to get a hot reception when it rides into the Commonwealth Armory Saturday evening, for the Crimson malletmen are primed to turn the tables on the Elis and gain revenge for the 14 to 9 defeat handed them in New Haven last weekend. The Blue riders will probably expect an easy victory, but the situation will be a different one from last Saturday's. The game then was played in Yale's home arena, which is somewhat less than half the size of the Armory.

Polo is one sport in which the size of the field matters a great deal. At the Armory, with its 300 by 180 foot floor space, there is ample room for the players to manoeuver into position, and the length makes much of the game depend on the speed of the ponies and the skill of the riders. On the New Haven floor any hard-driven shot from one end will travel clear to the other, and for a player accustomed to playing on that floor it is a simple thing to score a long-shot goal. Also, the effect of the ponies' speed is reduced to a minimum.

It was this difference in arenas that caused the Crimson to come a cropper last Saturday, and Major Sargent, coach of the pole team for the past three years, is confident that on the home floor the Harvard team will give a different account of itself. The lineup Saturday will probably pit Gay Dillingham, Winny White, and either Tommy Higginson or Jack Lewis against Alan Corey, Billy Chisholm, and Dava Wilhelm. As a question of individual supremacy between Dillingham and Corey the match should be interesting enough in itself.

Gay has been the sparkplug of the Crimson trio for two years and is at the present time probably the outstanding intercollegiate polo player. He is far and away the high scorer of his team and is chiefly responsible for its string of victories, marred only by the one defeat. Major Sargent ranks him, with Skiddy Von Stade, star of two years ago, and Pete Rumsey, who was killed in Mexico last summer, as the best player during his stay at Harvard. As far as handicaps go Corey is Dillingham's equal, with five goals indoors and four outside. He was one of the stars of last year's outstanding Eli trio and teamed with Mott Woolley, who was killed while playing last summer. Corey, a veteran of many years of playing in Long Island tournaments, will start at the number two sport Saturday night, with Chisholm, another Long Island tournaments, will start at the number two spot Saturday night, with Chisholm, another Long Island player, at one, and Willhelm, who gained his experience around Chicago's North Shore, at back.

Major Sargent is sure that he can match the Elis, man for man, in White, Higginson, and Lewis, all three of whom have played their share of the sport. White was born and brought up in Cleveland's Gates Mills, polo center of the Middle West. Higginson spends his summers on horseback while Lewis, a Medfield boy, has been playing the game, as well as the bagpipe, for years.

Advertisement

After the Yale game the Crimson will still have to meet Cornell and Princeton before the Intercollegiates, to be held the last week in March in New York. Major Sargent tries hard to keep a coach-like pessimistic note in his voice when he speaks about it, but it is certain that if the Harvard team does as well as he expects against Yale, it will go down to New York with a good chance to cop the championship.

Advertisement