Tracksters Suffer Through Bad Weekend

This weekend the Harvard track teams experienced what Newton meant when he discovered that "what goes up must come down."

After capturing stunning victories last weekend at the Greater Boston Indoor Championships, both the men's and women's team stumbled against Dartmouth and Brown at Saturday's tri-meet in Hanover, N.H.

The Crimson women, previously undefeated, lost to Brown 82-63, but defeated a strong Dartmouth team, which scored 41 points. The men (1-2 overall) scored only 25 points in the entire meet and lost to both the Bruins (58 points) and the Big Green (63).

"The men's performances were flat all-around." Coach Frank Haggerty said." I thought we would do a little better than we did."

Only one Crimson member managed to win an event in the men's meet. Freshman Derek Horner captured the long jump with a leap of 22'10". John Brzezenski threw a 55'7" in the 35-lb. weight throw, his best this season, but placed only fourth.

So, other than adhering to the basic laws of gravity, what happened?

"We had a very difficult meet the week before, exams are catching up with them, we had a hard week of practice and it was our first away meet," Haggerty said. "All that said, Brown and Dartmouth just beat us."

Key Members

Harvard might have fared better if three of their key members weren't injured. John Mee injured his hamstring during the 400-meter race and triple jumper Rutledge Simmons could complete only one jump after injuring his quadracep. John Rowe, who normally runs the 800-meter run, was not able to compete due to a hamstring injury he suffered during the warm-up.

Haggerty cited lack of numbers as a major factor in the women's poor performance. Sixteen people were knocked out of competition due to illness or injury.

Clawing for Points

"I had to shift a lot of people around," Haggerty said. "Next week we'll have more of the type of lineup that we had at the Greater Boston Championships."

Aside from clawing with their opponents for points, the Crimson had to battle poor officiating.

In the two-mile relay, an official pulled Jackie Ball off the track and away from receiving the baton because he miscounted the laps of the incoming runner, Co-Captain Elizabeth Ross. The official apparently thought Ross had one more lap to go when, in fact, she was finished.

"The officials just weren't paying attention," Ross said. "[The meet] was very unprofessionally run."

"There is no question that we would have won that relay," Haggerty said. "We were victims of some rather questionable officiating. The whole day was filled with a comedy of errors."

Fortunately for Harvard, there were some who dared to defy the forces of gravity as well as the bad officiating.

Sprinter Meredith Rainey managed to stay up on the cloud of track success, winning the 800-meter run in 2:12.05.

The ever-improving freshman, Cathy Griffin, had her best throw of the season: 45'6", only three inches off the school record. Griffin is throwing three-and-a-half feet over what she was throwing this time last year.

The mile relay team of Rainey, Beth Pfefferle, Wanita Lopeter and Lauren DiStefano, turned in a time of 3:54.68, its best time of the year.