SURVEY OF HARVARD-YALE CONTESTS GIVES MARGIN OF SUCCESS TO CRIMSON

With the Harvard-Yale track meet and lacrosse game at New Haven on Saturday, the University sport season nears its climax. The next three weeks will be crowded with contests with the Blue in baseball, rowing, tennis, golf, and polo the athletes will be busy, closing the competitive year with the boat race on the Thames on June 24.

A survey of athletic contests of last year and to date this year shows that the Harvard-Yale competition is much keener than popular opinion would allow. The edge in victories actually rests with Harvard. Each university can claim three major sport victories, with one tie contest. In the lesser sport engagements, the Crimson holds a 9 to 8 margin of success, with one meeting tied.

Triumphs in two hockey series and a baseball series account for the University major victories, while the Elis have taken the palm in football, track and rowing, with one football game undecided in a scoreless tie. Two wins in squash, basketball and cross-country, and single successes in tennis, golf and soccer make up the Crimson total of minor honors, while Yale has twice won the series in wrestling, fencing, and indoor and outdoor polo. In addition to the lead that this summary gives to Harvard, the University has for the last two years obtained the laurels in the Intercollegiate Indoor Track games, defeating Yale among other teams that opposed the path to the title.

Last spring's contests on track, turf, and river were equally productive of victories to both universities until the Elitriumph on the Thames last June settled the final verdict in favor of the New Haven athletes. Harvard's minor sport wins in tennis and golf were balanced by Yale successes in outdoor polo and lacrosse. In the major contests, however, the victory of the powerful Blue eight gave Yale an eleventh hour advantage as far as spring sports went, and evened up the count for the whole year, a hockey win and football tie having placed Harvard ahead at the end of the winter months.

Yale's track victory was by the scant margin of one third of a point, thus making the difference between the Crimson and Blue records even less that it appears at first glance. The other two major sport encounters both resulted in decisive victories. Harvard took the annual Commencement baseball series in straight games, slugging 'strength proving the chief factor in deciding the issue in favor of the Cambridge ball players. The first game which was played in New Haven was a see-saw affair, the final Crimson run being delayed until the eighth inning. The second and final game of the series was a slugfest with the University batters poling 17 hits for 15 runs while Yale was able to amass only five runs off the offerings of Booth and Cutts. Yale turned the tables two days later on the waters of the Thames, entering a crew in the time honored four mile classic, which was strong enough to surpass the best efforts of Harvard's oarsmen by a good two lengths.

Minor Sport Teams Win

The Harvard Superiority in fail minor sports for the past two years is offset by this year's 12 to 7 defeat in football. In 1926 the Crimson and Blue elevens fought up and down the Stadium to a scoreless tie, but in the Bowl last fall two deadly accurate field goals by Wadsworth and Bunnell spelled downfall for the Harvard team.

Against this record of one loss and one tie stands one victory and one tie registered in soccer, and the unbroken record of triumphs of the cross-country runners. The 1925 soccer eleven battled the Blue booters to a 2 to 2 deadlock, but Captain W. B. Gherardi '27 led his men to a 3 to 2 win on New Haven fields. The hill and dale men meet the Yale runners in the annual triangular clash to which Priceton also sends representatives, and the last two years show a Harvard superiority that was challenged by the Blue last fall over the new Eli course, but which displayed the strength of the Crimson teams. Over the Charles River course in 1925 W. L. Tibbetts '26 led R. G. Luttman '28 and E. C. Haggerty '27 across the finish line and the one-two three order of those runners brought the Crimson a total of 20 points, while Yale tralled with 47, and Princeton with 66. Last fall Smith and Briggs of Yale showed the pack home, but J. L. Reid '29, Haggerty and Leslie Flaksman '29 followed in that order immediately on the heels of the Blue stars, and the final score stood Harvard 25, Yale 31, Princeton 64:

Consideration of the records of winter sports shows the balance all on the side of the University. For the past two years Harvard hockey and indoor track teams have won the Intercolleglate titles in these two branches of athletics. The Ellice series always closes the schedule for the Crimson skaters, and in 1926 Captain Thayer Cumings '26 led his men through two whirlwind games with the Yale puck chasers. 4 to 0 and 2 to 0 scores told the story of Harvard superiority on the ice for a season in which lack of an arena of their own greatly handicapped the Blue players, but this year Harvard again accounted for two straight triumphs, by scores of 6 to 2 and 2 to 1.

In winning the Intercollegiate Indoor track title twice from a large field of colleges, the Crimson forces scored indirect triumphs over the Blue team, which loomed each year as a titular threat. Winter minor sports honors for 1926 and 1927 have in each case gone to Yale by a margin of three sports to two. The Harvard squash and basketball players have emerged triumphant in their engagements with the Elis, while in wrestling, fencing and indoor polo the Yale grapplers, swordsmen and riders have prevailed