Crimson Harriers Vanquish Indians

The Harvard cross country team hustled to its eighth consecutive victory of the season yesterday, sweeping the first nine places to outdistance Dartmouth on a soggy Franklin Park course by a perfect score of 15-50.

Even without a Dartmouth challenge, there was fierce competition for each of the seven scoring positions. The entire team was closely bunched at the start, and seven runners passed the mile mark together in 4:32. By the two-mile mark, the field had begun to string out, but seventh man John Heyburn was still only eleven seconds behind the leaders.

Over the last three miles, the race broke up into several smaller battles. After a brief challenge by Keith Colburn in the second mile, Royce Shaw and captain Doug Hardin were left alone in a head-to-head duel at the front. Hardin attempted to force the pace and move away in the third and fourth miles, but Shaw stayed on his shoulder tenaciously. The bearded pair fought it out evenly until Shaw put on a final burst 150 yards from the finish, sprinting away from Hardin by two seconds. Both runners eclipsed Shaw's old record of 26:50.

Sophomore ace Dave Pottetti lost contact with the leaders shortly after the half-way point, but kept up a steady pace to finish third, bouncing across the finish line in 27:02.

After a brief flash of brilliance in the middle of the race, Colburn settled back into sixth place. He revived in the final mile, however, to overtake sophomore Jon Enscoe and challenge Tom Spengler. But Spengler glanced back with about 600 yards to go and the redhead's attempt to "sneak up on him" was foiled when his teammate picked up the pace and clinched fourth place by two seconds. Enscoe finished behind Colburn in sixth place with a personal best time of 27:27.

Senior Tim McLoone and John Heyburn matched strides in a battle for seventh until McLoone made a strong move with just over a mile to go, striding in for the final displacement points. McLoone finished less than a minute behind the victor, giving Harvard a closely-bunched group of top-flight runners.

Junior Erik Roth trailed Heyburn for ninth, and Dartmouth's Dave Rouse edged a game Pete Dennehy for tenth. Max Schweizer was the final Harvard finisher, loping in for fourteenth place.

Coach Bill McCurdy was brimming with superlatives over his team's powerful performance, labeling his squad the best in Harvard history and one of the best collegiate teams every assembled.

In the freshman meet, Bob Seals led the Yardlings to a convincing 21-36 victory over Dartmouth.