Color the Ivy League Crimson

The 1984-85 sports season started off innocuously enough, with a 1-0 women's soccer victory over Bowdoin.

Even before the football team traveled to New York for its annual opener against Columbia, the Crimson had demonstrated that 1984-85 was going to be another outstanding year for Harvard intercollegiate athletics.

And when the final varsity heavyweight shell crosses the finish line in Cincinatti on June 15, ending the Collegiate Nationals, Harvard and Radcliffe teams will have claimed 12 Ivy League titles, tying the all-time league mark they established two years ago--and almost matched last year with 11 Ivy crowns.

The soccer player who orchestrated that initial whitewash, freshman goalkeeper Tracee Whitley, was only the first of many Yardlings in the sports spotlight this year.

The netminder for the U.S. 19-and-under squad and the most sought-after goalie in her graduating class. Whitley wasn't one to sit on her credentials, recording 394:15 (four-plus games) minutes of scoreless play before she allowed her first collegiate goal.

Whitley wasn't supposed to do much netminding in her rookie campaign--the bulk of the keeping chores were to rest on the able shoulders of fifth-year senior Janet Judge, who had returned from an injury suffered in the first game of the 1983 season.

Bad Judgement

Judge, however, ended up on the sidelines for the entire campaign, the victim of an obscure NCAA by-law that stated that she had used her fourth and final season of eligibility by traveling to Europe with the team the previous summer, following her spring semester off. With Judge sidelined, Ivy Rookie of the Year Whitley shone.

Also shining were the football team's one-two punch of running backs Mark Vignall and Robert Santiago who led the squad to 5-4 overall mark and a second place Ivy finish despite falling to Yale in The 101st Game.

The women's soccer team, meanwhile, also didn't claim its Ivy crown--its sole league loss, a 1-0 decision to Brown, put the Crimson out of the race for the Ancient Eight laurels. The booters did advance to the NCAA playoffs, however.

Even non-title winners enjoyed a healthy measure of success. Both soccer squads advanced to the national playoffs despite not claiming league crowns. The men, who also drew on the considerable talents of their freshmen, fielded their first Ivy Rookie of the Year, Nick Hotchkin.

The women's volleyball team was not as successful, but nonetheless worked to a 11-15 mark.

The field hockey squad struggled, posting a 5-10 slate, after being touted as league favorites.

The women's basketball team returned to the realm of respectability, posting an 8-18 slate after three campaigns that yielded a total of 14 victories.

The men's ski team claimed a carnival, its first such triumph in a quarter-century, and although the Crimson wound up the season second behind its nemesis, Johnston State, in its Division II circuit, the result was encouraging for the snowmen.

The women's hockey team garnered a second-place finish in the Ivies, behind the exploits of perhaps the most outstanding freshman athlete.

Julie Sasner, now co-captain-elect of the '85-86 icewomen, tied the all-time Crimson goal-scoring mark, despite spending her year playing on defense. Given an opportunity to concentrate on scoring, the Ivy Rookie of the Year will easily topple, and maybe even triple, every Harvard career scoring mark in the book.

Carlton No More

In net for the icewomen, an old face was shining as brightly as the new one. Senior Tracy Kimmel, a three-year backup to graduated superstar Cheryl Tale, finally shifted responsibilities from opening and closing the bench gate for her teammates to guarding the net.

She turned out to be an even better goalie than a doorman, even earning a berth on the All-Ivy first team, an honor that would have seemed out of the question for Kimmel at the beginning of year, when survival, not celebration, seemed the order of the moment.

Also at Bright Center, the icemen skated to their most succesful campaign in two years, falling in the finals of the ECAC Tournament. The Crimson's second-place finish did earn it a bid to the NCAA playoffs, where it dropped a pair tightly contested 4-2 decisions to the incensed Bulldogs of the University of Minnesota Duluth in Duluth.

In the course of their campaign, the icemen managed to pick up a one-third share of their fourth straight Ivy title. The 21-9-2 Crimson was paced by Scott Fusco, who returned from a year on the U.S. Olympic team to score 81 points, the second-best single-season effort in Harvard hockey history. The other star for the icemen was eight-headed.

The eight members of the Class of '88, particularly first-line wing Lane MacDonald (who set the Harvard record for goals scored by a freshman, with 21) and hard-hitting defenseman Jerry Pawloski shone in various roles for the Crimson, filling the void left by the large Class of '84.

The NCAA managed to toss a wrench into the icemen's campaign as well, disallowing. Allan Bourbeau from returning to competition after two semesters off. A victim of an "academic progress" rule. Bourbeau met Harvard's stringent criteria for returning to the ice, but failed to equal the more arbitrary guidelines of the NCAA.

The men's basketball team, meanwhile, had been cast as the Ivy favorite for the first time in league hoop's 83-year history, but failed to deliver a first-ever Ivy crown, managing a fourth-place finish and a 7-7 league mark (15-9 overall).

Co-Captains Joe Carrabino and Bob Ferry both earned All-Ivy honors, the former on the first unit, the latter on the second. Carrabino, an All-American and Academic All-American selection, became Harvard's all-time leading scorer, eventually racking up 1880 career points.

Next door, at Blodgett Pool, the men's swimming team delivered the goods for the seventh straight season, with a triumph in the Eastern Seaboard tournament. Led by what may be the finest crop of freshman ever to compete for Coach Joe Bernal, the Crimson dropped a single regular-season contest but blew out the field in the crucial weekend tournament.

Shortfall

Diver Dan Watson, who fell short in his bid for the final spot on the U.S. Olympic diving team, set records all season, blowing away his competition.

The women's swimming team, under the guidance of first-year Coach Maura Costin, enjoyed a resurgence, stroking its way to an exciting third-place Eastern finish, topped only by powerhouses Brown and Penn State.

The wrestling team fell a fluke pin short of claiming the Ivy title, settling for a second-place finish. The matmen, who posted a 13-6 mark, sent three wrestlers to the NCAA Championships, Co-Captains Barry Bausano and Sean Wallace and freshman Jeff Clark.

The final pair of winter teams, the men's and women's squash squads, won everything.

The men claimed the national five, six-and nine-man championships, dropping barely any games, much less matches, along the way to the feat. The women earned the Ivy title and the Howe Cup (the de facto national title) in the same year for the first time in the team's history.

For Harvard's three-season athletes of the cross-country, indoor and outdoor track teams, the year was spiced with success. The women's cross-country team earned the Ivy league title with a victory at the Heptagonals in the fall, and the men's track squad garnered the indoor title in the winter with a Heptagonal victory of its own.

Another squad to earn a tournament league victory was the men's volleyball team, which avenged two years of losses to Princeton by claiming the Ivy title over its arch-rival in April.

The other California sport on campus, water polo, enjoyed new coaches. The men's team found itself in the hands of longtime swim coach Bernal and the women, in their second year of varsity play, were steered by Costin.

The men recorded their usual strong season, but once again failed to top Brown, the traditional Eastern water polo powerhouse. The women, however, managed to stop the fearsome Bruins and suffered more from a lack of tough competition than anything else.

In a traditionally Eastern sport, on the other hand, the lacrosse squads saw plenty of tough competition.

The men's team played well against a number of nationally ranked opponents, but fell short each time. A lack of consistency plagued the laxmen, who finished up last in the Ivy League.

The women's lacrosse team cruised through its league schedule, winning all its games and taking home a fifth straight title. A reduced field for the NCAA tournament, however, left the highly ranked squad without an opportunity to pursue a national title in the playoffs.

Also left out of the national playoffs after an outstanding season was the baseball team. Although the batsmen were five games behind league-leading Princeton at one point in the regular season, the Crimson managed to win 10 league games in a row, the last six on the road, to tie the Tigers at the end of the year. That forced a one-game playoff for the Eastern intercollegiate Baseball League title and a berth in the Eastern Regional of the NCAA tournament. Despite the Crimson's loss in that contest. Coach Alex Nahigian earned New England Coach of the Year honors and the squad finished up with a 29-9 mark.

The softball squad played its first full schedule of games against other Ivy schools and marched to a second-place showing behind the outstanding pitching of Janet Dickerman and Gerri Rubin and another crop of solid freshmen.

On the water, the Harvard lightweight crews got off to a blazing start, but the varsity couldn't top Princeton or Yale, in regular-season competition or at the Eastern Sprints in mid-May. The Crimson heavyweights rebounded from early-season losses to Brown and seemingly indomitable Navy with an upset victory in the Sprints. The triumph qualified the varsity heavies for national championship competition at Cincinnati in mid-June.

On the opposite bank of the Charles, the Radcliffe lightweight crew proved the best in the nation again, blowing out all of its competition.

The sailing team claimed the first Horne Trophy, named for the long-time Harvard sailing coach, to top off its season.