Varsity Five Takes Sixth Place In Springfield Invitation Tourney

It was not a happy new year for varsity coach Floyd Wilson as he saw his quintet win only one of three games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to finish sixth in the Springfield College Invitation Tournament. The Crimson will journey to Providence tonight to meet favored Brown in its Ivy League opener.

Drawing Williams as its first opponent, the varsity started slowly and spent the rest of the game trying to catch a team it had defeated earlier in the season. Led by Jeff Morton's 22 points and Jim Willmott's 20, the Ephmen won handily, 83 to 67. Coach Wilson cited the lack of rebounding strength as the Crimson's downfall. High scorers for the varsity were Bill Richling with 16, George Harrington with 13, and Mike Donohue with 10.

Defeat AIC

The varsity picked up its only win the next night downing American International College, 68 to 61. The see-saw first half closed with the varsity trailing by two, but a second half spurt put the team ahead to stay. Wilson praised Bob Bowditch's work off both backboards, saying that the sophomore forward turned in his best effort of the year.

Donohue topped the Crimson scorers with 17, Bowditch and Bob Repetto each had 14, and Griff McClellan netted 12.

Against New Hampshire in the play off for fifth place, the varsity again started slowly, and was behind, 32 to 23, at the half. Then, down 10 points with eight minutes remaining, the varsity rallied to take a slim lead two minutes from the finish. But the Wildcats came back to tie it up in the closing seconds.

Collapse in Overtime

The Crimson had a chance to win in regulation time, but McClellan missed a foul shot attempt after the final buzzer to send the contest into overtime. And when New Hampshire ran off 10 straight tallies at the outset of the extra period, it was all over, as they held on to win, 69 to 62.

McClellan paced the varsity attack with 15 markers, followed by Donohue with 12 and Bowditch with 10. Incidentally, host Springfield captured first place that night by defeating Williams, 77 to 66.

In tonight's game, the Crimson will face a team which features a 6 ft., 8 in pivot man who can score as well as rebound. He is captain Al Poulsen, who is averaging 13 points a game and who last year ranked fourth in the league in rebounding.

Brown Favored

The Bruins have posted a 4 and 5 re- cord thus far (as compared with the varsity's 5 and 4), but are favored on the basis of their last two outings, in which they defeated Colgate, 70 to 65, and upset Providence College, 72 to 64.

Lacking scoring punch due to graduation of Joe Tebo and Gerry Alaimo, Brown relies on juniors Dave Reed (6ft., 3 in.) and Cliff Ehrlich (6 ft., 4 in.) as forwards. Rounding out the starting five will be Roger Hurley and either Al Diussa or Chris Mitchell.

The Bruins have decent reserve strength, including three men who measure over 6 ft., 4 in. Their biggest weakness is defense, which is usually man-to-man