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Track Team Grabs Big Three Title; Crimson Wins 12 of 14 Events at Yale

By Charles B. Straus

The undefeated Harvard track team continued to perform impressively as it clobbered Princeton and Yale to take its 13th Big Three title Saturday in New Haven. The Crimson's domination was clear-cut as it took first in every running event and all but two field events.

The Princeton challenge failed to materialize as the Tigers managed just two firsts, both in the weight events, for 41 points to Harvard's 89. Yale, as expected, did not mount anything approaching a respectable effort, coming in third with a dismal 18 points.

The winning times and distances were in general inferior to those turned in by Harvard in its GBC win, but both the dirt track and the lack of any serious competition in most events made outstanding efforts hard to come by.

Vincent Vanderpoole-Wallace, who had a particularly fine day at the GBC's, took the long jump but not before he incurred an injured leg on his first jump. He came back after that to make one more effort before retiring for the day and came up with a fine winning effort of 23'8". In Vanderpoole-Wallace's absence, freshman Huseyin Kayali took the triple jump with a Cox Cage record distance of 47'7" in what Harvard coach Bill McCurdy termed a "major surprise."

One-Two Punch Too Much

The one-two punch of Jim Kleiger and Blayne Heckel again proved to be too much for the competition in the pole vault as Kleiger set a meet record with a fine vault of 16'1/4". Freshman Mel Embree won as expected in the high jump with a surprisingly low 6'4".

But as was the case in the GBC's Harvard's real strength and depth was revealed in the running events. The Crimson, in fact, took 1-2 or better in every race longer than a sprint.

Nick Leone started the Crimson rolling with a 1:12.3 600, with freshman Joes Peters taking second. In the mile, Harvard swept for the second week in a row as John Quirk and Ric Rojas took an easy 1-2 with Quirk running a good time of 4:08.8 and Rojas two-tenths of a second back.

Dewey Hickman continued his string of victories in the 60-yd. high hurdles with a winning time of 7.4, while Baylee Reid beat a good sprint field in the 60-yd. dash with a 6.3 performance with three Tigers well back in second through fourth places.

Bob Clayton failed to approach his world-best time of 2:08.0 in a slow 1000, but he won easily in 2:12.8. Another promising freshman, Wayne Curtis was second in 2:13.4. In the two-mile the quartet of Rojas, Bill Durette, Jimmy Keefe and Quirk swept the first four places for Harvard. The performance marked an unprecedented second consecutive year the Crimson has taken the two-mile in such a fashion.

In the mile relay the team of Randy Buckley, John Maggio, Joes Peters and Nick Leone won one of the few close races of the afternoon in a fast 3:21.4 over second-place Princeton's 3:21.8. The two-mile contingent, composed entirely of freshmen, won easily in 7:49.8. Harvard thus closed out the regular season undefeated with the Heps, IC4A's, and NCAA's coming up in the next three weeks.

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