Harriers Triumph in GBC's; Capt. Koerner Finishes Second

The Harvard Cross Country team won the Greater Boston Championships at Franklin Park yesterday for the eighth year in a row. The meet was marked by (among other things) the reappearance of sophomore Ric Rojas after a three week lay-off with the flu.

The final score stood at Harvard 36, Northeastern 48, Tufts 72, Boston College 87, B.U. 127 and Brandeis 146. MIT did not enter enough runners to figure in the scoring.

Winner in the race was Dan Moynihan of Tufts who benignly neglected the rest of the competitors and broke the GBC record. In a maximum feasible effort, he finished the 5.0 mile run in 23:55.

Harvard Capt. Mike Koerner finished second in 24:19 and was followed by another Tufts runner, Ham Amer, who took third in 24:27.

The Crimson's John Quirk finished fourth but had to fight three Northeastern runners and Rojas for the entire race. At the mid-way point, Rojas was running fourth and three Northeastern runners were scrambled around Quirk.

Quirk then passed Rojas, but so did two of the Huskies who raced him to the line.

Quirk finished in 24:40 just ahead of Northeastern's Bill Row and Si Langer. Row was clocked at 24:41 while Langer took sixth in 24:44. Rojas was next in 24:52, followed five seconds later by Northeastern's Ken Flanders.

"I thought Rojas did remarkably well considering how long he had been out," head coach Bill McCurdy said after the meet. "He just started to jog a little bit last Wednesday, and there was some question over whether he was going to run today.

"If Rojas hadn't run," McCurdy added, "we would have won by just one point."

Harvard's Tom New took 11th place in 25:08. Sophomore Fred Linsk rounded out the Crimson scoring, winning 12th place in 25:17.

McCurdy said he felt the GBC win bode well for the big three race this weekend. "Koerner ran a very fine race as did Quirk. And Rojas' comeback will be a big factor," he said.

The Crimson also took the freshman crown, winning with a perfect score. The final tally was Harvard 15, Northeastern 63, Brandeis 66 and B.C. 94.