Crimson Harriers Top UMass, 17-46, Fall to Providence Powerhouse, 15-49

The Providence Friars showed the Crimson harriers no mercy yesterday, grabbing the top six places to trounce Harvard, 15-49 at Franklin Park. At the same meet, however, the Crimson put into practice what the Friars were preaching, and annihilated UMass, 17-46.

Despite the lopsided scores, overall the meet was a "positive experience because UMass had run superior times to us before the race but we knocked the hell out of them--we beat them almost as bad as Providence beat us," Harvard coach Bill McCurdy said.

Friar Jeff Smith, a British Olympian who spent two weeks this summer in Moscow, glided to top honors, completing the six mile race in 30:26.5. Imports Breandan Quinn and Ray Tracy displayed the skill of the Irish following Smith across the border in 30:39.2 and 30:39.4 respectively.

A Flexible Hand

Not content with a one-two-three finish, the friar's second wave of runners overcame the wave of heat to give Providence a perfect score of 15.

"We're renaming the Providence team from the Friars to the Flyers," McCurdy said. "They were so impressive pillaging and so forth--it's a good thing they weren't running against the women."

Harvard's Buck Logan and Eric Schuler stayed with the forerunners through a fast 4:35 first mile.

"Eric and I were just surrounded by Providence runners," Logan, who won Saturday's race against Northeastern, said. "At the two and a half mile mark, they just took off. Until then they were waiting for each other to gather."

Logan ran the last two miles of the race lurking in the range of the pack, but going into the fourth mile he lost a little mileage which he couldn't make up and had to settle for a seventh place 31:23 finish.

Teammate Schuler, running in his first race of the season, turned in a strong 32:00 performance despite a nagging knee injury which had prevented him from competing last Saturday.

Harvard's third man, Felix "the Cat" Rippy, disproved any theories that freshman need time to adjust to college athletics as he whizzed by the finish line in 32:10.

Bingo

But the surprise of the meet was Marty Wehlage, a freshman who won the JV meet against the Huskies but moved into varsity yesterday where he came in 12th in 32:26.

Other strong Harvard finishes included Bruce Weber (32:32), Adam Dixon (32:42) and Paul Jacobs (32:45).

The Crimson's record now stands at 2-1 with the harriers going into their first league meet on Friday when they meet Columbia and UPenn at Van Cortland Park in New York.