W. Thinclads No. 1

The Harvard men's and women's track teams travelled similar paths to their outdoor Ivy initiations last Saturday at Providence, R.I., competing in tri-meets against Brown and Dartmouth. Beyond the bus trip, though, not much else was similar.

While the women were busy claiming 10 first place finishes--including an incredible four by Erin Sugrue--on their way to a decisive 21-point victory, their male counterparts struggled, coming home a distant and disappointing third.

Let's start with the good news.

Sugrue was superb, turning in a Carl Lewis-like four-win performance in the high jump, triple jump, 100 hurdles, and 400 hurdles. "She's really something," commented team member Lois Brommer. "She does that almost every week."

Brommer's afternoon wasn't too shabby, either, as she took the 1500 and 3000 in her first two-win meet as a collegian.

While dual meets are often won by outstanding individual performances, tri-meets require a deep pool of talent. "Everyone had a strong day," Brommer said. "Usually a few people hold the team together, but this time there were plenty of seconds to go with all the firsts."

The burst of dominance came at an opportune time for the women--who revenged indoor losses to Brown and Dartmouth--because a powerful Yale squad will be in Cambridge next week.

Ahh, next week.

That's the beauty of sports--there's always a next week, or a next season, to look forward to.

Well, the Crimson men certainly have no cause to start thinking about next year. But the team's 37 point, third place performance Saturday was worth forgetting.

Field events accounted for the lion's share of the scoring, if you can call 25 points a lion's share.

Rob Gustafson leaped to first place in the high jump and long jump. "We expected to do a little better," he said. "A few of our key people were missing."

Cliff Sheehan, Paul Kent, and Bill Pate were conspicuous by their absence, as the normally strong middle and long distance corps failed to produce.

"We're a young team, a good team. We came close to beating Northeastern last weekend," said James Russell, who won the hammer throw. "We have great individuals on our team, but we lacked quite a bit of our depth, which is so vital in tri-meets."