Penn Wins Heptagonals; Crimson Takes Fourth

(Special to the CRIMSON)

PHILADELPHIA-The well-oiled University of Pennsylvania sports machine rolled to a resounding victory at Franklin Field here Saturday in the 37th Annual Heptagonal Track Championships. It was Penn's first Hep win in 30 years.

Harvard's trackmen had a number of bad breaks and managed only a fourth place finish. Although Penn was the clear favorite, the Crimson had hoped to give the Quakers a much closer fight.

The final scoring gave Penn 731/2 points to 37 for second-place Princeton. Army was third at 351/2 followed by Harvard with 32. Navy, Cornell, Yale. Brown and Columbia also ran.

Harvard's worst mishap came in the mile run. Defending champion Jon Enscoe, running in the inside line, fell some 20 yards from the starting line when he was forced into the side rail by runners jockeying for position. His fall was greeted by shouts from the crowd for the officials to "shoot the gun" and recall the race.

Usually, when a runner falls down during or before the first turn in the mile or two mile, the race is called back.

Penn's Karl Thornton won the mile in a very fast 4:07.3. Army's Bob Curran finished second at 4:08.8 while Brown's Tim Cosgrove took third at 4:09.3.

Thornton also took first in the two mile. Dartmouth's Tom Shiland took an early lead in that race followed closely by Harvard's Tom Spengler and Jeff Brokaw. By the last lap, the race for first narrowed to Spengler, Penn's Bob Childs and Thornton, who pulled up steadily throughout the race.

Thornton kicked on the final turn and pulled far ahead, winning the race by about 15 yards. Spengler and Childs battled their way to the line where Childs nipped the 1970 champion. Thornton was timed at 8:55.3 while Childs ran 8:57.5. Spengier was 1 seconds behind.

The Crimson's best race of the day came in the 880, where Dave Elliott and Bob Clayton took first and second. Elliott and Clayton led throughout the race and withstood a challenge from Princeton's Jeff Weil just before the final turn.

Elliott was timed at 1:52.3. Clayton at 1:52.4. Weil ran the race in 1:52.7.

Javelin record holder Richie Szaro of Harvard won second place behind 1970 champ John Pozhke of Cornell who broke Szaro's record Saturday. Szaro, who finished third in the Heps last year, threw the jay 225' 0". Pozhke's throw was measured at 239' 10", just better than Szaro's 1969 record throw of 238' 5".

Harvard's Walter Johnson took fourth in the 120 high hurdles in 14.4 as Navy's Wayne Kenard set a new Heps record of 14 flat.

In the mile relay, the Penn relay team of Steve Race. Pete Toohey. Mike Gall and Roy Supulski ran 3:1?.2, breaking the old mark of 3:13.4 set by Yale in 1968.

The relay was run in two sections. Because it was fifth at that point in the meet. Harvard was placed in the first and slower section. The Crimson team of Dave Anderson, Ed Dugger, Walter Johnson and Rick Melvoin ran first in its section.

However, the first three teams in the second run-Penn, Navy and Princeton-all ran faster. The Princeton anchor runner tripped and stepped out of his lane before the finish line. but was not disqualified.

In the 440 relays. Penn broke another record. Penn's time of 40.7 seconds bested Yale's of 41.3 Harvard's Bud Wilson, Chris Alvord, John Schneider and Bailee Reed took fourth in the relay.

In the 440 hurdles, Crimson runners Ed Dugger and Walter Johnson took early leads, but Princeton's Andy Kappel and Ben Brown hit stride on the final 75 yards and took 1-2 respectively. Kappel ran 52.8. Brown 53.1.

Dugger, who hit the final hurdle, took third at 53.3 and Johnson was fifth at 54.0. Yale's Dick McDonald, 1970 winner, took fourth at 53.7.

In the triple jump. Harvard's Howie Corwin took second with a jump of 48' 1". Glen Fausset of Cornell-who was also first in the long jump-won the event with 49' 31/4".

Other Harvard scorers included Ed Baskauskas and Fred Lang, who tied for fifth in the high jump.

"This wasn't our day," head coach Bill McCurdy said after the meet. "Considering all the so-called bad breaks, we did pretty well."

Penn's coach Jim Tuppeny expressed surprise over Harvard's performance and added that "Princeton seared the heck out of us."

"With Enscoe falling, it put Harvard in a bad psychological spot. Then, with Joe Naughton not scoring in the shot put and Markowski (Penn's shot putter) getting third, it put us in a strong position," he said.