1944

Ted Marshall of Camden Blocks Tar Heel Punt and Allendale End

Tallies

The Shrine classic’s greatest crowd, 14,000 cold-cramped spectators, sat awaiting a seemingly inevitable scoreless tie in Memorial stadium yesterday, as South Carolina class-plated backs and North Carolina’s steel-girdered forwards reached the fourth period still deadlocked.

Then came the blow, swift and sudden as a shot, that gave the Sandlappers a well-deserved 6-0 triumph, their second since the glittering high school all-star tussle was born in 1937.

Gastonia’s Charlie Pearson was punting from the South Carolina 46. when like a destroyer, Camden’s rangy tackle, Ted Marshall slashed through to smother the ball. Also in fast was William Prevaux, a substitute end from the town of Allendale, who himself had blocked a North Carolina punt in the first quarter.

Prevaux hugged the pigskin on first hop on the Tar Heel 32, and from there breezed all the way across the double-chalks. Greenville’s Dick Hendley booted low for the conversion, but no one questioned that that was the ballgame, although 10 minutes were remaining. And it was the ballgame.

The most colorful and largest gallery in the classic’s history was treated to a fast, hard-smashing game that ran pretty much to pregame form. The Palmettos has the offensive edge, slick, running centered attack led by Anderson’s Bobby Gage, Columbia’s, Red Hollis and Camden’s Carol Cox.

Hendley the heavy-legged Greenville boy also shone in the punting department and it was largely he who pinned the Tar Heels back the wall for the game’s only serious overland bid for a tally.

That was in the dying moments of the second period, after Shelby’s Bobby Reynolds had put the Tar Heels in the hole with a poor 15-yard punt that went out on their own 21.

With the fiery Hollis starring, they zoomed down to the nine for a first down. Cox of Camden bolted down to the three, but two running plays lost back to the five. Then on last down, Charlotte Central’s End Gene Graham, who played a magnificent game, batted down a pass from Gage to Hollis, and the Tar Heels were saved.

The stadium turf was still soggy underfoot from recent rains, and had the prep standouts slipping

and sliding ineffectually most of the long, frigid afternoon. Cold cut down the passing game to a minimum, and cost both sides completions.

Marshall and Prevaux, Charles Smith of Darlington and Gene Carson of Spartanburg were the big boys in South Carolina line. For North Carolina, Charlotte’s two starters Gene Graham at end and Louis Kerr at tackle, were among the top defenders. Oscar Elmore, the burly Lincolnton center, Tom Matthews, the Rocky Mount tackle and Jimmy Knotts, Albemarle guard, were other standouts.

Neither club could get going in the first quarter until Prevaux reached up from the ground midway that period to block Pearson’s punt on the Tar Heel 35. Graham hit Cox for no gain. Knotts did likewise to Gage, and then Gage passed incomplete. On the last down with his protection jammed against him, Hendley missed the ball completely on his attempt to punt. The Tar Heels recovered on their 41 and that was that.

Reynolds, the supposedly brilliant Shelby punter, got his club into a hole as the second period opened by kicking only 12 yards and out on the Tar Heel 39. Two plays took it to the 35, but there Hollis fumbled and End Fred Fisher of Salisbury recovered.

A towering 44–yard boot by Hendley, which skittered out on the N.C. nine, put the Tar Heels in trouble again soon after three players lost back to the six and then Reynolds again punted poorly out on the 21. From there the Sandlappers initiated their most serious drive, only to be repelled.

A towering 44- yard boot by Hendley, which skittered out on the N.C. nine, put the Tar Heels in trouble again soon after three player s lost back to the six and then Reynolds again punted poorly out on the 21. From there the Sandlappers initiated their most serious drive, only to be repelled.

South Carolina took the third period kickoff and was again on the move down to the N.C. 30 before a fumble halted them with Cox belting from his spinback spot and Gage slithering through nicely from tail.

From then on the clubs stayed pretty much in their own territory until the coup de grace of the blocked punt. That changed a game that seemed headed for the third scoreless tie, in Shrine history.

Coaching staffs of both states were proud of their boys. Camden’s Jon Villepigue of the Sandlappers especially so. The only other Sandlapper’s triumph to date was the 12-0 verdict in 1939.