Hope For Unbeaten Season Rest On Today's cross-country Meet

If Harvard's cross-country team is to go unbeaten this year--and Coach Bill McCurdy has said it can--it's obvious what has to be done against Providence College today.

The only problem is figuring out how we're going to do it.

Since the two teams haven't met any common opposition this fall, an up-to-date comparison of their strengths is impossible to come by. Cross-country is a sport where times run on different courses mean nothing at all.

So the best information Harvard fans have to go by is last year's score against the Friars. And those figures, even when viewed through Crimson colored glasses, look mighty gloomy.

In 1963, the Crimson varsity edged Providence 24-32, but in the freshman meet, Friar yearlings took the first four places ahead of Jim Smith, the pride of Harvard Yard and one of McCurdy's front six this fall.

If that Providence quartet pulls the same feat again, it will be the ball game for McCurdy's glowing predictions for 1964.

Statistics on the Friar's performance this fall do little to brighten the picture.

Last weekend Providence dropped a 31-34 squeaker to Army in a triangular meet with Central Connecticut, but Paul Harris and Bob-Powers, two who beat Smith last year, and junior Barry Brown finished in the third, fourth, and fifth positions. The next two Friar runners, sophomores Al Campbell and Mike Eaton, were back in the tenth and twelfth positions, but Eaton's time was less than a minute slower than Harris's third-place clocking.

They've shown from that meet that they have five men who run close together at a good pace," McCurdy said. "It's up up to our second line, Smith, (Dave) Allen, (John) Ogden, and (Roy) Cobb to break up that pack."

Hewlett--Harvard's Hope.

Ahead of that pack, McCurdy hopes, will be Harvard's All-American junior Walt Hewlett, an team captain Bill Crain. Hewlett, an easy victory in last Saturday's sweep of UMass, is a good bet to place first again against Providence.

But Crain, unlike Hewlett, is well within the reach of the Friar front line, and will have to run a great race to give the Crimson a one-two finish.

McCurdy shrugs off statistics showing Providence's Brown finishing ahead of Crain last year. "Bill is a lot better now than he has been before," the coach said.

Taking McCurdy at his word, the Crimson can squeak by in this one if, as the coach hopes, the second-liners can prevent a Friar sweep of the middle positions.

"Our boys know what they have to do, and I feel they're able to do it," McCurdy said. "I've never thought this would be an easy meet, in fact it's probably the toughest one we'll have, but I think we're going to win it."