The race is not always to the swift, neither is the hockey game to the team with the most hustle. Which is why Harvard beat Dartmouth, 5 to 4, at the Arena last night.

Actually, the Crimson deserved to win this exciting contest, for it was clearly the better team. But the energetic Indians, playing their second top opponent in two nights, won the approval of the 1,500 onlookers, and came within a stick length of tying the score at the very end.

With goalie Gordon Russell performing superbly in the Green net, and a three-man defense corps excelling, too, the Indians stayed one goal behind the Crimson for the first two periods. Then, at 5:35 of the last frame, Captain Bruce Haertle finished off a beautiful pass play engineered by John Titus, and scored his third goal of the night, to tie the count at 3-3.

The Crimson now began to play with a drive and precision it had previously lacked. Captain Walt Greeley put the locals ahead permanently at 8:01, firing from in front of the defense, along the ice and into the corner. So exact was the shot that Russell had no chance to go down, let alone save.

Greeley also scored the eventual winning goal, this one at 16:03. Dick Clasby moved the puck to the crease whence it bounced out to Greeley.

Crimson wing Jeb Bray went off for elbowing half a minute later, and the hustling Indians moved right back into the game, when Titus banged in a perfect screen shot set up by Haertle at 16:48.

Obviously exhausted, the Green nevertheless kept the pressure on. At 19:44 Russell went out for a sixth skater, and the Indians forced two face-offs in the Crimson zone. On the last, the puck slid by an open cage, but the Harvard defense pushed Dartmouth's Doc Gale just far enough from the rubber to prevent the tying goal.