Women Harriers Nab GBC's

There is a good side and a bad side to the dozens and dozens of suntanners, bikini-clad and oiled, who crowded Boston University's Nickerson Track yesterday during the final day of the women's Greater Boston Track and Field Championships. The good side is that it was the largest number of spectators to grace a women's track meet all year. The bad side is that only sporadically did the intent ray-catchers take note of the races going on around them--so much so that the officials had to ask them to turn the music down when BU's phenomenal Julie White was attempting to high jump over six feet just 20 yards away.

A lack of interest notwithstanding, the Harvard women's track team turned in an outstanding performance to win the two-day meet-marking the first time the Crimson has won the GBCs in cross-country, the indoor championships, and the outdoor championships in the same year.

Despite White's Herculean efforts, BU finished second to Harvard's 118 points with 95 points. White won the high jump, long jump and 100-meter hurdles, finished second in the 200-meter dash and fifth in the shotput, and ran on the victorious 4 x100-meter and 4x 400-meter relays.

Running at full force with out any injuries to hamper them, the Crimson thinclads managed to place in every event. It was this depth that allowed them to prevail over BU's Terriers, who almost upset Harvard in the indoor championships, but appeared devoid of spark and manpower last weekend.

It was Harvard's renowned strength in the distance and field events that again carried the squad to victory, and-with a few exceptions-it was the freshmen who led the way in the assault on the Harvard and Greater Boston Championship record books.

One of the biggest exceptions was senior co-Captain Kim Johnson, who competed with a pulled hamstring muscle yet managed to place second in both the discus and the shot-put with tosses of 124-ft. 11-in, and 43-ft, 3/4 in., respectively. Nationally ranked Sandy Burke of Northeastern was out of reach in both events, especially in the discus, where she set an amazing new meet record of 163-ft. 3-in.

Power

Because of the lack of a pentathlon in the meet, versatile freshmen Mariquita "Skeets" Patterson was able to unleash her talents in a number of events, taking second in the long jump, the 400-meter hurdles and the 100-meter hurdles.

Crimson junior Darlene Beckford-whose mere presence in the Ivy League during the past three years has raised the caliber of competition immensely-loped to a new meet record of 4:24.9 in the 1500-meter run yesterday. Allowing teammates Mary-Jeanne Barrett and Mary Herlihy to set the pace and trade the lead for the first two laps. Beckford moved into her customary lead position with a half-mile to go, then held on to finish ahead of Herlihy, who ran a personal best of 4:27.0. Barrett completed the sweep with a strong 4:28.6 effort.

Running in the toughest double of the day, freshman standout Jenny Stricker competed in both the grueling 3000-meter run and later in the 800-meter event, and she set new meet records of 9:32.2 and 2:12.6 in both of them.

Stricker showed her iron determination in the 800 when faced with a neck and-neck race with teammate Grace de-Fries in the final stretch of the event. Straining with every available ounce of remaining strength, Stricker moved barely ahead of de-Fries-who had worked her way up to Stricker's shoulder-to eke out a victory by one-tenth of a second.

"I like those kind of races," Stricker smiled after the race. "You have to get psyched to win at the tape-it's fun."

Running in what Assistant Coach John Babington called "the most painful race for anyone today," Canadian freshman Kate Wiley overcame a lingering knee injury to jump to an early lead in the 5000-meter run, then held on to win with a meet record of 17:05.4.

Harvard's only other victory and meet record came in the 4 x 800-meter relay, which featured freshmen Kathy Goode and Barrett, and seniors Kristen Linsley and Herlihy racing to a new mark of 9:16.2.

THE NOTEBOOK: Junior Wiley McCarthy ran in the 10,000-meter event Saturday morning and lopped lots of time off her previous best to qualify for the national championships by 41 seconds... Marjorie Scharoun set a new University mark with her fifth-place time of 25.7 seconds in the 200-meter dash Lane Rozzell's jump of 5-ft, 4-in, was her best this season...Kathy Busby's split of under 26 seconds and Sigrid "Ziggy" Gabler's split of 58.9 in the sprint medley relay were also personal bests... Stricker and Wiley, after winning their distance events, jogged home from BU for a little extra training.