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The Crimson swimmers saved their fireworks for the final day of the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming Championships, bowng out Saturday with a flourish that warned rival teams to beware of Bill Brooks' mermen in 1965.
But even three solid places on the last day at Dartmouth was too little late for the Crimson, who finished ninth in the three-day meet with 19 points, a dwarfish total beside Yale's winning score of 129.
The top Crimson point producer was Bruce Fowler, who captured the 100-yard breaststroke with an EISC and Harvard record time of 10:02.1 to give his team its only win of the meet.
The flashy sophomore led all the way to edge Yale's Dale Kiefer by three feet and reverse the finish of Friday's 200-yard breaststroke, when the Eli junior finished on top.
But more impressive even than Fowler's win was Dan Mahoney's fourth place finish behind Princeton's Scott Andrews in the dive.
Mahoney, suffering from a stone bruise that had not allowed him to practice since the Yale meet, had not originally planned to compete, and had made a belated trip to Dartmouth Friday only after the rest of the team had been shut out in Thursday's competition.
Nevertheless, the Crimson junior led by 2.55 points after the afternoon series of dives, and with fine showings in his first two evening attempts had built his margin to an almost insurmountable 40 points.
Coming off two good dives, Mahoney looked like a shoo-in for the championship as he began his approach on his third and next-to-last try. But as he vaulted for his final spring, his knees buckled under him and he crumpled onto the tip of the board, then tumbled like a rock three metres into the pool below.
The judges gave him no points for the effort, thereby shattering all Harvard hopes for a first place finish.
On his final attempt, the courageous Mahoney elected to try a forward 3 1/2 somersault, the hardest dive in the book. He scored an admirable 7 1/2 points on one judge's card, a full point better than the best score given any other dive all day. The effort earned him fourth place and a standing ovation from the crowd and established him, according to Brooks, as the best diver in the East.
The Crimson's final place came from junior Dave Abramson in the 1650-yard freestyle. Abramson's time of 18:35.8 shattered the Harvard record by a whopping 12 seconds but was good only for fourth place in a tough field. North Carolina's Harrison Merrill nabbed first with 18:09.8.
A second Yalie NCAA standard-bearer, Mike Austin, was upset in the 100-yard freestyle by Bill Stuek of Colgate, whose 47.5 timing was 0.4 too fast for the Eli sprinter.
Princeton's Jed Graef was another league swimmer who fell victim to an upset-minded non-Ivy. North Carolina's Thompson Mann knocked off the Tiger captain in the 100-yard backstroke
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