Trackmen Finish Third As Wildcats Win IC4A

A record 6 ft., 9 in. high jump by Harvard sophomore Chris Pardee highlighted an otherwise so-so performance by the Crimson trackmen in Saturday's IC4A indoor meet in New York.

Favored Villanova copped the team championship with 22 points, one better than runner-up Manhattan. Harvard, rated second among contenders in pre-meet estimations, finished third with a 14-point total.

Pardee's dramatic victory came on his third and final attempt at the 6 ft., 9 in. height. The Crimson sophomore and arch-rival John Hartnett of Princeton had both cleared 6 ft., 8 in., with Hartnett holding the edge on fewer misses.

But the Tiger jumper bowed out at the higher level, and Pardee, on the try that counted, sailed up and over the crossbar to break his own Harvard record of 6 ft., 8 1/4 in. and capture the Crimson's only first place of the evening.

All hopes for the team championship had dissipated in the afternoon, when favored Art Croasdale failed to place in the 35-lb. weight throw and heps champion Aggrey Awori was shut out of the broad jump.

Connors Conquers

Manhattan's John Connors topped the weight competition with a heave of 61 ft., 5 1/2 in. Four men in the unusually hefty field broke the 59-ft. mark, just a little too good for Croasdale, who finished sixth.

Foul trouble kept Awori out of the broad jump scoring. The former Olympian lept 22 ft., 3 1/4 in. on his first try and then fouled on his next five attempts. Chris Ohiri took second place behind Maryland's Mike Cole in the event with a 23 ft., 10 1/2 in. effort.

Meehan stars

Crimson captain Ed Meehan and his junior understudy Keith Chiappa compensated for the afternoon's failures with fine showings in the 1000-yard run. Meehan, still recovering from a cold infection, took third in a strong field with a timing of 2:12.5. Chiappa was fifth, a scant second behind his teammate.

Hurdler Tony Lynch lost out in the quarter-finals of his event, eventually won by John Bethea of Morgan State.

One from Croasdale

These performances and a fifth-place finish by Croasdale in the shot put accounted for the Crimson's 14 points.

Ohiri lost out in the quarter-finals of the 60-yard dash, and Awori, despite a 6.3 timing in his heat, failed to make the finals.

Walt Hewlett ran the two-mile in 9:24, finishing well back in the field. Georgetown's Joe Lynch won the event with a 8:59.2 clocking.