The varsity track team finished an uninspired ninth in the IC4A championships last Saturday at Randall's Island, N.Y., but at least there was one consolation. Yale finished tenth.

Penn State's amazing Nittany Lions ran away with the team title, scoring 46 1/2 points to runner-up Maryland's 29. Boston University used ts field event strength to capture third place with 22 points, and defending champion Villanova took fourth Manhattan, Penn, New York University, Tufts, Harvard, and Yale rounded out the top ten.

Dyke Benjamin scored four of the varsity's 10 3/4 points with a second-place effort in the two-mile. Benamin went out to an early lead and was ahead by more than 30 yards after the first mile. But Penn State's Dick Engelbrink, the pre-race favorite, caught Benjamin at the start of the seventh lap and won easily after fighting off one last desperate challenge by the Crimson ace.

Still hampered by foot injuries, the Crimson's Joel Landau saw his two hurdle crowns go to Bill Johnson of Maryland and Bill Szeyller of Penn State. Landau did not oppose Johnson in the highs, and the best he could do in the lows was a third behind Szeyller's 23.1. The varsity's Tom Blodgett turned in a 14.8 performance in the high hurdle semifinals but was eliminated.

Blodgett, vaulting with a borrowed pole, managed a third-place tie in the pole vault at 13 feet. Varsity hammer thrower Jim Doty, after a horrendous qualifying effort of 159 ft., 9 in. on Friday had put him in the finals by half an inch, came through with a 172 ft., 2 1/2 in. heave on Saturday to take fifth. Doty also had to use borrowed equipment, and like many others he staggered out of a 7:30 a.m. exam Friday morning before flying to New York for the trials.

In the high jump, the Crimson's John deKiewiet tied with three other excellent performers at a disappointing 6 feet. Al Leisenring of Yale, Frank Carroll of Manhattan, and Charlie Stead of Villanova were bracketed with deKiewiet.

Crimson cptain Albie Gordon put the mile relay quartet in the finals with a blistering 47.5 anchor leg that brought the team from fifth to third. In the finals, he overhauled Yale's Jim Stack, to take fifth, topping a day of futility for the Bulldogs and giving the varsity its final point of the afternoon.