Ball Team Tops Cornell 8-6; Groper's Pitching Saves Win

The Athletic Association's first venture into twilight ball proved only moderately successful yesterday, as the varsity outlasted Cornell, 8 to 6, on Soldiers Field. The game was called because of darkness after eight and-one-half innings.

Only good clutch pitching by Crimson relief pitcher Pat Groper saved the game, for the Big Red amassed the astonishing total of 11 bits off his offerings and those of starter-and winner-Andy Ward.

Cornell picked up a first inning tally, which the Crimson retrieved in the second on a double by Don Butters and some loose Cornell fielding.

Another error and singles by Dick Clasby and Captain Russ Johnson gave Harvard two runs and a permanent lead in the third. Clasby batted in three runs during the afternoon, and got three hits in three at-bats.

In the fourth, the Crimson utilized two hits and a walk for three more tallies; now the verdict seemed sure.

But Cornell smashed three hits in the fourth, and for the first time this year Ward left the box before a man had been retired. Groper retried the side, but the Big Red had three more runs.

A fourth-inning Crimson tally "sealed" the game again, but Cornell touched Groper for three hits (without a run) in the sixth, and two runs on a line triple by Tony Giarrusse in the seventh. With the tying run on third and only one out, however, Groper induced pinch-hitter Holden Hostage to tap back to the box, and then struck out Jim Craig, who had previously hit safely four times.