Tigers Paw Wounded Harriers

"Plop, plop, fizz, fizz--Oh what a relief it is." Unfortunately the relief wasn't there, and neither was half the Harvard track team as the sick and injured Crimson succumbed to Princeton and beat only hapless Yale in Saturday's triangular meet at Princeton.

Princeton swept all four places in the two-mile run to bury any Crimson hopes of winning the meet. Harvard distance ace Pete Fitzsimmons, suffering from a cold and lack of practice and freshman Reid Eichner, tired out from his earlier performance in the mile, couldn't catch the fleet Tigers. The Crimson could manage only 50 points to Princeton's 73.

"Considering all the aches and pains we did all right," Coach Bill McCurdy said yesterday. "We took a real good shot at it but we just did not have enough firepower," he added.

The absence of able-bodied runners enabled Eichner, tri-captain Jeff Campbell, and John Chafee to compete for the role of "Six-Million Dollar Man". Eichner did his distance double, and Campbell had to run the 1000, mile, and a leg of the two-mile relay. Chafee got all the middle-distance events that were left--the 600-yd. run and the mile relay--and joined Campbell in the 1000-yd. run.

Campbell beat Chafee and everyone else, to the tape to win the 1000 in 2:15.9. Campbell also ran a fine 4:09.2 miles, which was good enough for second place.

The Crimson field-event entrants were a little healthier and, after their performance, a little happier than the runners. Chris Queen snared the shot-put crown with a 52 ft. 8 3/4 in. toss, while Geoff Stiles shuttled through space in the pole vault for his first victory against Princeton.

Ed Ajootian, who loses as frequently as the Government department gives out A's heaved the 35-lb. weight 61 feet but only netted second place for his efforts. In the tightest competition of the afternoon, Princeton's Gene Mancino edged Ajootian by a measly nine inches.

The unofficial weight man's relay race proved to be the highlight of the afternoon. This event, somewhat like limiting the Indy 500 to Panzer tanks, pitted the behemoths of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in a sprint relay. "It was the highlight of the meet. The only problem was with the staggered start. We could not tell where to start or how we did because our guys took up three lanes," McCurdy said with tongue-in-cheek.

"It was a good meet," McCurdy added, in a more serious tone, "It was just not humanly possible to win. We could not be sneaky and conniving in our condition," he said.