Middies Easily Win First Heptagonal Crown; Harvard Thinclads Finish Disappointing 3rd

The magic which had carried the Harvard track team to virtually flawless wins in the GBC and Big Three meets failed to work this weekend as pre-meet favorite Navy romped to its first Heptagonal title in Ithaca, N.Y., with Penn a distant second and the Crimson a respectable, but disappointing, third.

"We had the idea that we could win it, but we didn't do as well as we could," head coach Bill McCurdy said yesterday after returning. "The last couple of weekends we have been golden, but we had more of the normal problems this weekend."

Problems the Crimson had in abundance. Co-captain John Quirk, a winner the last two meets, was tripped in the mile and failed to qualify for the final. "I was very disappointed," McCurdy said. "I thought John was ready for a major effort, but he ran into some traffic problems, and fell."

Large fields, a great deal of jostling for position, and the indiscrimant use of elbows proved to be the downfall of both Bob Clayton in the 1000 and Ric Rojas in the two mile. Co-captain Clayton ran into trouble in his race while winner Dennis Fikes steered clear and he took a disappointing third, Rojas, who has looked extremely good the last two outings, took fifth in the two-mile with Bill Durette a surprising fourth, but his hopes for first place were hurt by the first mile jostling. "Ric's a lot like Clayton in that he doesn't have a great deal of muscular strength," McCurdy said. "The first mile just took too much out of him."

There were, however, some bright spots for Harvard. Nick Leone won the 600-yd. dash in a very good time of 1:10.5, on the relatively slow, flat tartan 220 yd. oval at Cornell. Leone had been bothered by minor injuries all week in practice but came up with what McCurdy termed an "outstanding effort."

Freshman Huseiyin Kayali continued to surprise in the triple jump, taking second to a meet-record 49 ft. 4 1/4 in. performance by Cornell's Jim Leonard. Mel Embree jumped 6 ft. 8 in. to take a strong second in the high jump while Pole-vaulter Jim Kleiger remained undefeated in the event with a winning jump of 16 ft. Baylee Reid surprised in the 60-yd. dash after reaching the finals through several photo-finish heats and semis, and took an eventual fifth. Dewey Hickman added a third in the high hurdles.