Crimson Harriers Open Season Against Huskies

Last year the cross country team followed captain John Quirk and standout Ric Rojas to a 9-1 record and the Ivy League championship. This year Rojas will be back but coach Bill McCurdy is still looking for solid men in the third, fourth and fifth spots to give the Crimson its accustomed depth.

"Hell, every year you could say that you are looking for depth in your lineup," McCurdy said yesterday. "But this year we really don't have anyone ready to step into the lower three spots. We had two of our top five runners graduate, and we're left with one outstanding runner, a man we think will do well at second, and the rest is a new team and a very green team."

The outstanding runner is, of course, Rojas, who will again lead the harriers at the number one spot. The 1972 Heptagonal runnerup and captain of this year's squad won seven meets last fall and is the team's main hope for a successful season this year.

Jim Keefe, at the second spot, is the other proven runner on the cross country team. "Jimmy did very well in our training camp earlier in the month and he and Ric should give us a strong top two-man nucleus," McCurdy said.

Achilles' Heel

Until he suffered a severely bruised Achilles tendon in the Oxford-Cambridge meet last spring, Bill Durette was expected to be another strong hope for the harriers. His loss has been somewhat offset, though, by the fine showing of Dirk Skinner, a "complete surprise" in McCurdy's words, who ran exceptionally well in camp.

Senior Jeff Brokaw, who did not run last year, is returning, and he and classmate Andy Campbell should be in a position to help the team if they run up to their potential. Others vying for positions include letterman Fred Linsk, Jerry Hines, who did well in training camp this year, and returnee Karl Tsigdinos.

Blemishes and Huskies

The Crimson harriers open their season Wednesday at Franklin Park against New England champion Northeastern. Harvard has made the only blemishes on three otherwise unbeaten seasons for the Huskies with early season defeats in dual meets.

Northeastern has another powerful team including a nucleus of captain and number one man Billy Rowe; Ken Flanders, a junior who performed impressively at the NCAA six-mile run last year; and Mike Buckley, who won the Greater Boston Championship three-mile run last spring.

The Huskies entered an open meet a couple of weeks ago and won handily, if not overwhelmingly, defeating their nearest opponent by a whopping 44 points.

P.R.

"Their P.R. literature said they expect to go undefeated," coach McCurdy said. "And if they are all as good as they think, then they'll probably give us a pretty severe test."

The season does not get much easier as it goes along, either. Next Tuesday the Crimson faces Massachusetts and Providence, two highly-touted New England powers. On October 5 the harriers go against Columbia and Pennsylvania--two teams that are always strong in the Ivies.

"The last couple years we'd have meets that you'd just about look at as workouts because the outcome was never in doubt. This year we have a much tougher schedule than we've had in a long time. I think Rojas and Keefe can give us an even break against the top two men and we have a gaggle of others that can step into the lower three spots," McCurdy said.