Freshman Cagers Romp Twice; Complete Best Season Since '54

The freshman basketball team climaxed its best season in 16 years last weekend with back-to-back victories over Brown, 87-67, and Yale, 117-88 in the IAB.

The Yardlings finished the season with a 17-2 record. the best a Crimson freshman team has posted since 1954 when the Yardlings were 16-0. Last years' team record was 12-3.

In the Yardlings' Friday night game against Brown, the Crimson repeatedly lost the ball to a tight Bruin zone defense. Throughout the half, the Crimson failed to connect from underneath the basket and was unable to convert important free throws. Brown led at the half, 34-31.

After continued trouble with the tight Bruin defense. Harvard finally fought back to tie the score with 11:53 left in the second half. Ten seconds later, guard Gene Wilkinson scored on a breakaway and ignited a Yardling scoring drive that gave the Crimson the lead for the first time.

Before the Bruins could score another point, the Yardlings had built up an eight point lead. The freshmen ended the period outscoring the Bruins 56-33.

Forward James Brown was high scorer for the Yardlings with 23 points.

The Yardlings were never behind against Yale Saturday night. Harvard used its starters and bench strength to dominate the Bulldogs for the entire game-leading at one point by 25 points. Guard Bob Foster topped the Yarding scorers with 21 points.

The Yardlings this season scored an average of 1047 points per game, the highest freshman or varsity team average in Harvard's history. They defeated 17 of their 19 opponents by an average of over 23 points.

The varsity has never scored more than 102 points in a single game.

Forward James Brown led all Yardling scorers this season with a 22? per game average. Center Floyd Lowis led the team in rebounding, pulling down over 14 per game, and was second in scoring behind Brown, Both Brown and Lewis broke the freshman scoring record set last year by Matt Bozek.