Northeastern Edges Thinclads, 69-67

What can you say when your track team runs its tail off against Northeastern only to lose by two points? You can't say much.

And you can't say much about the Crimson's loss to Northeastern Saturday, 69-67. Of course, you could always go back and look at the record and see where the score could have been changed.

Things seemed to be going badly right from the beginning. Although Adam Dixon started off the day by winning the mile, it was only a short time later that the Crimson's big hope in the long jump competition, Gus Udo, injured his ankle on his second attempt.

"It was a tough meet to lose because we really did some outstanding things," said team manager Sue Barton. One of these outstanding things included Captain Dave Frim's new university record for the 500 meter run, 1:04.54.

Marc Chapus equalled his university record in the 440 yard dash, but was beaten by a Northeastern runner, Bill Jenkins. Jenkins, with a time of 48.30 seconds, beat Chapus easily to set a new building record.

Not that it was all Northeastern. Harvard did provide a few surprises of its own. Namely, Louis Edozien's victory in the triple jump for 13.80 meters. Edozien, before Saturday's match, hadn't competed for a year and wasn't even listed on the roster.

Saturday's meet also marked John Murphy's return to effective running. Murphy had similar trouble with Northeastern runners, specifically, one Jeff Cullinane, who edged him out both in the mile and in the 1000-yd. run.

Perhaps Cullinane was the surprise Harvard hadn't counted on. Noted Harvard coach Bill McCurdy, "Northeastern didn't even know about him. He was third on their list." Perhaps that's where the two points went.

Another surprise the Crimson hadn't counted on was sickness. McCurdy later called the meet "Harvard vs. Northeastern vs. The Bangkok Flu." With Felix Rippy and Eric Schuler sick, the expected sweep of the two-mile run was impossible. As it turned out, Buck Logan did net an impressive win in that competition with a 9:00.54, but again, nothing seemed to be enough Saturday.

There were bright spots to the afternoon, though. In fact, the Crimson won both relays, the one-mile and the two-mile, with excellent performances by Scott Murrer, Bennet Midlo, Ryan Lamppa, Peter Johnson, Chapus, Frim, Murphy, and Dixon.