Dartmouth Nips Cagers, 66-64

Dartmouth's Bill Healy swished a long jumper at the buzzer last night to lead the Big Green past the Crimson in overtime, 66-64. Healey's shot nullified the great efforts of Harvard forwards Doc Hines and Cy Booker, who came off the bench to lead the Crimson to a 55-55 tie at the end of regulation play.

Hines was Harvard's leading scorer with 13 points, and scored two clutch baskets late in the second half. On the first, he fought inside for a rebound and hit the follow to tie the contest at 49-all.

After Sterling Edmonds put Dartmouth back in the lead off a fine pass from Healey, Hines hit a long jump to knot the score again.

Pain in Knee

And again, the Big Green grabbed the lead right back when guard Larry Cubas hit a one-handed shot from the top of the key. Hines tried the same long shot and just missed, Bill Carey scampering to the corner for the rebound. He bounce-passed the ball back to Hines on the baseline, but the forward fumbled it out of bounds underneath the hoop. There were 30 seconds left in the game.

The clock ran down to 0:12 before Harvard stopped the game with a foul, Hines leaving the floor with his fifth personal. When Adam Sutton hit both ends of the resulting one-and-one situation, it looked as though Hines's earlier miscue had cost Harvard the game.

The last Seconds

But that was when Cy Booker came into the picture. As the last seconds ticked away, the sub forward dribbled down the middle of the key and was fouled with 0:08 showing on the clock. He hit both of the bonus-situation freethrows to pull Harvard within two points.

Then, as Dartmouth struggled to get the ball inbounds, he dashed to the baseline to pick off the pass, and fed Jeff Hill underneath for the tying basket.

Psyched-up Harvard jumped to a 59-56 lead in overtime, but Dartmouth rallied to go ahead 64-62 in the final minute. Booker made his last grab at the hero's mantle with 30 seconds left, pumping in a short jumper to tie the game yet another time.

But Healey did him one up, firing off his prayer from the corner as time ran out to give Dartmouth the 66-64 victory.

Harvard had gotten itself in trouble early in the game, opening slowly and sputtering to an 11-4 deficit in the early minutes.

But a hot hand by guard Jeff Hill got the Crimson back into the contest. He fired off three straight baskets to pull Harvard within one, and Glenn Fine dropped in a bomb from long distance to put the Crimson in the lead, 12-11.

Dartmouth's big gun for the night, sophomore center Sterling Edmonds, started to open up, however, and propelled Dartmouth to a 27-20 lead with the bulk of his 14 first-half points.

In the last four minutes of the half, the two teams traded points to forge a 31-23 halftime bulge for the Big Green.

Two bursts got Harvard back into the thick of the fight in the second stanza. Hines dashed down the court with the ball and fed a behind-the-back pass to Fine, who returned the ball to Doc in the corner. He popped from there to start the first Crimson surge, Muliufi Hanneman and Carey following with baskets that pulled Harvard within one at 33-32.

Dartmouth righted itself to pull away to a 41-37 lead, but then Satch's charges fired off another blast. Hannemann went inside with a powerful move and passed the ball off to Booker for an easy hoop.

After the two squads traded the ball back and forth through a minute of sloppy play, a beautiful pass from Joe Leondis to Bill Carey gave Harvard another easy basket and a tied ball game.

After a Dartmouth miss, Booker put home an arching shot from the corner to give Harvard a 43-41 lead, making the final, hectic minutes possible.

The eventual overtime loss leaves the Crimson record at 8-16 overall and 3-9 in the Ivy League, Harvard has two games remaining.