Thinclads Triumphant in Greater Bostons

DEDHAM--Take heart, Harvard fans. You no longer have to go to a football, basketball or hockey game to hear your favorite Harvard fight song.

If you were one of the 300 people who went to the Greater Boston Championships yesterday afternoon, you would have heard the fight song "Harvardiana" (the one that begins, "Mid Crimson in triumph flashing") performed by the Harvard track team.

That's right--the Crimson track team.

The thinclads were clearly "Crimson in triumph" at the GBCs as the women snared first place in team competition, and combined with the men for seven individual titles at the Dedham facility.

Harvard finished with 78 points in the women's division, outlasting B.C. (64 points) and B.U. (59). Northeastern ran away with the men's title with 112.5 points, while the Crimson trailed far behind in third with 47.

The Harvard women led the championships almost wire-to-wire, with freshman Romney Resney establishing the Crimson advantage by winning the 10,000-meter run in the second event of the day.

Meredith Raney captured Harvard's next title with a GBC and track record time of 54.26 for the 400. And if circumstances had been different, Raney might have posted an even faster time.

"There was supposed to be another girl here from B.U.," Raney explained, "and she would have pulled me."

Senior Erin Sugrue was Harvard's only double winner, running away from the field in the 100 hurdles and copping the women's high jump title.

On the men's side, James Russell snagged first place in the hammer throw. The senior could have won the event with one of his qualifying throws, but stayed long enough to heave the 16-lb. hammer 197-ft., 11-in. to out-distance the competition by almost 16 feet.

Steve Pinney nabbed an individual title in the pole vault by clearing a height of 14-ft., 6-in.--half a foot higher than the second place finisher--while Donald LaVigne edged out the competition in a close 400-meter intermediate hurdle race.

"I felt good," said LaVigne. "I ran strong the first five hurdles, but then I hit one and stutter-stepped."

By the time LaVigne recovered, he was even with his closest counterpart. But he flew over the last three hurdles to win by nearly a second.

Track Coach Frank Haggerty was pleased by the Crimson's effort. "It just happened this year," he said. "We relaxed and each individual did what they could."

But, according to Haggerty, the Crimson was not even in full gear yesterday. "We gave away points on the shot and the discus [and] we held Erin Sugrue out of the triple jump," Haggerty said. "It's very important before the Heptagonals and after the Penn Relays [held last week] to keep constant attention to injuries."