Matmen Tenth at Navy

Finishing fourth in the 150-pound division, captain Pat Coleman was the only Crimson wrestler to place in the Eastern championships Saturday at Annapolis, Md., as Harvard finished a distant tenth place behind upset victor Penn State.

Harvard went into the tournament with a 14-5 dual-meet record, hoping to improve on last year's eighth-place finish, but the Ivy League runners-up could manage only 17 points as compared to Penn State's 84.

The winning Nittany Lions upset by two points the host Naval Academy, which was after its third straight championship. Lehigh finished a close third in the 16-team competition with 80 points.

"We had a good season but we certainly didn't reach our potential down there and I just don't have any explanations or excuses." Harvard coach John Lee said. "It was really disappointing, we had an excellent chance to finish way higher than we did. The opportunities were there: we just didn't take them,"

Harvard's main problem in the competition was that it could only place one individual in the top four spots of any weight division. These top four positions are the only ones which count heavily pointwise and hence mean the most in team competition.

As expected, Ivy League champion Princeton finished ahead of the Crimson, but Yale, a team Harvard beat in a dual meet, placed in front of the Crimson solely on the third-place performance of 190-pound Bill Eliot.

At 118 and 126 pounds, Harvard competitors were eliminated in the first round by seeded opponents. Before Josh Henson's opening-round bout at 134 pounds, his thumb, which had bothered him during the week, was discovered to be broken. Seeded eighth, he went into the match anyway but was beaten by Columbia's Jeff Badini, 11-5.

Seeded fourth, Coleman won his first match, 13-3, over Princeton's Steve Gross. He then lost a close 6-5 decision to the eventual winner and a close family friend, Don Stone of Penn State.

At 158 pounds, last year's second-place finisher Mark Faller was seeded second. However, after three minutes of his opening-round bout against Pittsburgh's Jim Fleming, it was evident Faller was tiring. He eventually lost, 4-3.

Fourth-seeded Rich Starr disposed of his first two opponents in the 177 division by scores of 5-0 and 13-5, before losing to eventual champion Scott Christy of Lehigh, 11-9.

A weak knee hampered Dave Scanlon as he lost a tight 5-4 overtime decision in the second round to Yale's Eliot. Heavyweight Angelo Marino disposed of Penn's Rick Zwieg, 5-0, before being pinned in the second round. Marino's opening victory was a surprise, since Zwieg had beaten him last Saturday, 10-3.