Cahalan Captures 50-Free In Eastern Championship

Sophomore captain-elect Mike Cahalan was the star for Harvard's swimmers in the opening day of the Eastern Seaboards Championships yesterday at Yale as he took first in the 50-free in 21.6, a Harvard record. Harvard's Steve Krause set another record in the 500-free.

Cahalan sprinted to the finish ahead of Mike Parlier of Navy, Walt Tropp of Temple, and Eric Holtze of Yale, who had the fastest qualifying time. "I felt really good the whole race," Cahalan said last night, "I'm very pleased." The victory netted 16 of Harvard's 38 points yesterday.

Aside from Cahalan's sparkling performance, there was not much reason for Harvard partisans to be pleased. Bill Murphy, who was rated a very strong contender in the one-meter diving, had to settle for a fifth-place finish behind divers from Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, and Pittsburgh.

Murphy's total of 361.95 points was far shy of the 460.75 score racked up by the Tigers' Mark Huffstadler. Although the Crimson ace did well on some of his dives, two mistakes proved costly. Murphy stil rates as the favorite in the three-meter diving, his best event.

Gain Points

Harvard collected 12 points in the 500-free competition as Steve Krause and Dave Powlison placed in the top ten. Krause established a Harvard record in the qualifying heats with a 4:51.8 clocking, 44.0 seconds better than the mark which he held. This time was fourth best in the afternoon, but in the finals last night, the tired Krause slipped to sixth.

The winner of the 500-free was, as expected, Olympian John Nelson of Yale. Nelson demonstrated his superiority by turning in a time of 4:46.4. Harvard's Powlison was tenth.

Coach Bill Brooks had no entrants in the fourth event of the day, the 200-yard individual medley, and the medley relay team failed to qualify.

Pre-meet favorite Yale is way out in front with two days remaining. The Elis have earned 118 1/2 points. The Crimson, now in sixth, will try to move ahead of Army (50), Navy (51), and aDrtmouth (59).

Butterfly

Today's events are the 200-yard freestyle, 200-yard butterfly, 100-yard breaststroke, 100-yard backstroke, 400-yard individual medley, and 800-yard freestyle relay. Johnnie Munk, a butterfly man, and freestyler Toby Gerhart are two strong Crimson entrants today, as is the relay team of Gerhart, Powlison, Bragg, and John Bragg. This relay quartet will be hoping to qualify for the NCAA meet.