Thinclads Wrap Up Mixed Season

The Harvard Indoor Track team came to the end of a rocky season last weekend in two individual tournaments after enduring a year of rebuilding and injuries.

The Crimson men wrapped up their schedule at the ICAAAA Tournament, held this year at Princeton University, while the women were at the Eastern Track and Field Championships in Syracuse.

Plagued all season by injuries to key players, the team nonetheless had some bright spots to look back on. Not the least of which was the impressive performances all season from the freshmen.

Last weekend, the frosh were just as noticeable as they have been all year.

For the men, freshman Brian Henry was the only team member who placed into the finals. Henry finished ninth in the 800-meter run, with a time of 1:51.56.

"[Henry] is certainly very good, since he was one of the only-freshmen in the finals," Coach Frank Haggerty said. "He registered one of the fastest times for freshmen in the whole country."

On the women's side, Senior Co-captain Cathy Griffin placed third in the 20-lb. weight throw, with an effort of 53'3 3/4". Freshman Jennifer Kearney took eighth in the mile run, with a time of 5:00.5.

Senior Co-Captain Rita Raju also competed in the triple jump, but failed to qualify for the finals.

"Griffin tried out a new technique that she hadn't quite gotten down yet," Haggerty said, "and Kearney started out at a faster pace than she usually does."

"If we had played it safe, we would have ended with better scores," Haggerty continued, "but we weren't going for a team score on these tournaments, so we just decided to go for broke."

The Crimson was competing at significantly less than full strength last weekend. Of the team members who qualified to compete--on the basis of their regular season performances--a fair number stayed home.

The team's new policy of not allowing those who had not scored at last week's Heptagonal Championships to compete was one of the reasons for the reduced size of the competing squads.

"It is conceivable that some of the qualifying performances came early in the season," Haggerty said. "We have had a lot of injuries since then."

"It seemed reasonable to me that if someone couldn't perform at the Heps," Haggerty continued, "they aren't ready for this. These are always very tough and