Men at Heps; Women at N.E.'s

A powerful women's track team from Boston University posted record-breaking victories in the dashes, hurdles and the 800-meter relay to edge out the tracksters from the University of Connecticut, 62-61, in the New England Championships at B.U. Saturday.

The University of Rhode Island placed third with 60 points, and the 13 thinclads representing the Crimson tallied 38 points to take fifth place in the field of 21 colleges.

Darlene Beckford came through with her usual solid performance, when she fought off a threat in the mile by University of Vermont speedster Judi St. Hilaire, and strode through the tape in 4:47.7, stripping more than six seconds off of the old New England record.

St. Hilaire held the first slot for much of the race, with Beckford on her shoulder and the Crimson's Kristen Linsley just behind. With less than a quarter mile to go, Beckford pushed by St. Hilaire and held the lead to the finish.

Linsley, who has been steadily improving since the season began, broke the five-minute barrier for the first time in her career with her finish of 4:54.6.

In an earlier meet the Crimson two-mile relay squad had been beaten by nearly six seconds by a team from URI.

"We're going after URI in the [4 * 800] relay. We're not going to let them do to us this time what they did before," Beckford said before the race.

She was right. Clabby started the race with a split of 2:15.6, and a handoff to Rogers 30 yards ahead of her closest competitor. Rogers widened the gap to 40 yards, handing the baton to Linsley with a 2:20.7 split. Linsley sped through her 800-meter leg in 2:19.0 to hand off to Beckford. The freshman star then ran the anchor leg in 2:09.1 to win the race in 9:04.4, more than ten seconds ahead of URI.

The Crimson not only broke the Harvard and New England records for the event, but also posted the second fastest time in the country so far this season.