Tracksters Tie For Fourth; Princeton, Penn Unbeatable

The women's track team spent the weekend down at Cornell for the first annual Indoor Ivy League Championships which, unfortunately for Harvard, went a little too predictably. Harvard tied Cornell with 38 points for fourth place, and Ivy powerhouses Princeton and Penn grabbed first and second according to plan, with 78 and 48 points, respectively.

It was a long day the tracksters put in inside Barton Hall-the vacuous gym which Crimson hoopster Tom Mannix once cheerfully dubbed "the airplane hangar"--as trials began early yesterday morning and finals weren't over until well into the evening. Having just recently run against and beaten Ivy foes Brown, Dartmouth and Yale, the Crimson began the day with a certain amount of confidence, tempered somewhat by an equally recent shellacking at the hands of Princeton. But revenge just wasn't in the lineup yesterday as Harvard won the events it had previously won against the tenacious Tigers, but could do no more.

The ever-reliable Kim Johnson won the shotput for the Crimson with a toss of 12.65 meters. Johnson hasn't lost her event yet this season, and the strong-armed Kirkland House resident has been improving her distance with every meet.

The invincible Darlene Beckford, whose exploits on the women's track team rival Adam Dixon's on the men's, won the 800-meter run in a blistering 2:07.9 and anchored the winning 800-meter relay, which she ran along with teammates Kristen Linsley, Mary Hurlihy and Martha Clabby. Beckford was named the meet's outstanding runner for her efforts.

In the 3000 meters, Ellen Gallagher set a mean pace and led for all but the final seconds of the race, when Penn's Nina Solo, who'd trailed her the entire time, found reserve energy to kick home the win. Gallagher's time of 9:56 was nonethless an outstanding one.

A surprise second place finisher in the pentathlon was Crimson speedster Liano Rozzell. Rozzell improved her scores in every single event over her last week's performance against Princeton and Yale, where she finished second to teammate Karen Gray, who was sidelined this week with the flu.

Another surprise performance came in the 5000 meters, the first event of the day, a pony-tailed pixie Anita Diaz came back from fifth place to capture third in the home stretch.

"It looked to us like Anita was running a quarter mile in those last two laps," recalls team captain Becky Rogers.