The uncomfortable, truth about a team's long winning streak is that some day it has to be broken. Harvard's varsity swimming team faced that truth Wednesday night and qualified it the hard way by one point.

Brown won the meet, 38 to 37, in a thrilling series of heart-breaking climaxes that left Crimson spectators almost as spent as the competitors. Every event except the 220, won by Eric Cutler with Frannie Powers at his heels, and the 400 relay which was won by Harvard after the fate of the meet had been decided, ended up with a nerveracking finish. The sad part of it all was that in most of the last lap surges Crimson tankmen were bettered.

The thrills of the evening started with Bud Wilcox racing Art Bosworth to a draw in the backstroke leg of the medley. Then, after Cutler and Powers had garnered first and second in the furlong, Nod Goldwasser, Junior sprinter, annexed a fighting second-place in the 50. Goldwasser's career in the pool now reads like a story-book. He has graduated from the ranks of the House swimmers to the Varsity reserves, and finally has outdone himself in first-rate competition to return a dynamic 24.4 against Brown, beating Matt Soltysiak, Bruin iron-man, for second.

There was the 150 backstroke, too, which Bosworth entered with the odds in favor of Brown's Wilcox. But last year's Freshman captain proved himself a fine competitor as he outswam Wilcox to take first place. In the 200 breastroke, Jack Waldron, rated No. 2 Harvard swimmer in that event, dug his way past Max Kraus to finish third, but the pluckiest race of the evening was swum by Frannie Powers against George Gibbons of Brown.

Powers led Gibbons by a yard for 14 laps, but then the diminutive Bruin pulled his way even, passing Powers and leading him for the next two lengths. The Crimson swimmer made a gallant bid as he went into the last turn, and came into the homestretch wide open cutting down his opponent's lead every second, but Gibbons stood him off until the finish, winning only by a touch.

The second place to Eric Cutler that Gibbons gained was the crucial tally of the meet, for before the 440 Brown had scored 35 points, needing only a three-point second place to clinch the contest with the required 38. If Powers had won, if Crimson sprinters had placed better, if our breastrokers had been stronger--in other words if Harvard had finished one place better in any event to secure that precious single counter, the score would have been 38-37 for the Ulenmen, for the seven-point free-style relay fell to Harvard, too late.