Cross Country Team Has Little Trouble Winning Another Big Three Championship

The varsity cross country team moved out to its usual early lead yesterday at Franklin Park and went on to rout both Princeton and Yale for its eighth consecutive Big Three title.

The Crimson took five of the first seven spots to beat Princeton, 19-39, and Yale, 15-50. It was the first time Harvard had won in a year ending in O.

Once again, captain Tom Spengler was the winner by 100 yards or so, turning in a fast 26:18 over the 5.5 mile course. It was only 11 seconds off his course record, and had anyone pushed him at all, it seems certain he would have reset the record.

Bob Seals, who finished second, and Mark Connolly, the fourth man across, both turned in strong performances to back Spengler. "Seals' race was very encouraging," coach Bill McCurdy said afterwards. He was never challenged after the first mile.

McCurdy had expected his team to start more cautiously yesterday, but the Crimson jumped off quickly and turned in the fastest mile splits since the Cornell meet two weeks ago.

This aggressiveness did not appeal to Yale and Princeton, so by the two-mile point, the Tigers' Dennis O'Brien, who was third, was the only opponent whom Harvard had to pay much attention to. "It was settled a little more quickly than I had expected," McCurdy admitted after finishing his victory peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The most interesting aspect of the race was the dueling which went on in the middle of the pack between Princeton's other top men and the Crimson's depth men.

Harvard's John Quirk hung back during the middle of the race and then moved toward the end. passing about five runners and finishing fifth. Meanwhile, Tom New, George Barker, and Howie Foye jockeyed for position with Princeton's Bill Good, Tom Yunck, and Eric Bates.

At the end, there were only 28 seconds between Quirk and Foye, who was 11th, as Princeton and Harvard alternated finishes.

And then came Yale. The Elis, who had had their glory in the freshman race, never played much of a role. Captain Karl Fields led his team with a 12th-place finish, followed by Steve Anderson.

The results may have surprised anyone who read and believed the meet outlook printed in the day's program. The article reported that Princeton was favored, presumably because it had lost to Penn by a much more respectable score than Harvard had.

The Crimson freshmen gave Yale some trouble, but they just didn't have the depth to match the Elis. Yale had 36 points, five fewer than Harvard, and 18 fewer than Princeton.

But the Elis had no one who could match Harvard's Rick Rojas and Andy Campbell, who were first and third. Rojas, who has been winning consistently, broke the course record of 15:30 by four seconds. It was set in 1966 by M.I.T.'s Ben Wilson.