With a somewhat surprising cast of heroes--Jack Spitzberg, Chris Ohiri, Hobie Armstrong, Hank Hatch, and Jack Jones--the varsity track team upset Yale Saturday in their Stadium, 81 1/2 to 67 3/4.

The Crimson's 13 1/2-point margin hardly indicates the extreme closeness of the afternoons competition. If the final event, the mile relay, had made any difference, Yale would have won it.

But the Crimson had 76 2/1 points going into the relay, and the best Yale could have done was 72 3/4. Thus both teams gallantly tried to throw the last event. Yale succeeded, and Harvard took a hilarious race in 3:24.4.

Yalies Hold Out

Until the meet's final stages, however, every place was of critical consequence. The Crimson held the lead from the start, the until late in the afternoon a Yale victory still seemed eminently possible.

One big reason the Bulldog win never materialized was Spitzberg's performance. The sophomore high jumper had been out of action ever since his 6 ft., 3 in. lead guaranteed the Crimson's indoor triumph over the Ells.

On Saturday, taped so heavily he could hardly walk, Spitzberg go over the bar at 6 ft., 2 in., to tie Sam Streibert of Yale for first. Spitzberg made three excellent tries at 6 ft., in; on his final attempt the bar wavered agonizingly for more than a second before it fell.

Ohiri added to his lengthy list of injuries by pulling a thigh muscle during the broad jump competition. But this did not stop him from winning the event with a brilliant 24 ft., 1/4 in, leap, one of the best in the East this spring and something Harvard track hasn't seen for 25 years.

Ohirl's damn-the-torpedoes style of broad jumping is a joy to watch; he crashes into the pit practically head first, to get every last inch out of his leap.

Ohiri and Armstrong contributed four key points by talking second and third behind Jay Luck of Yale in a 9.9 100. Both edged out Bulldog Wendell Mottley, seemingly a sure bet for second place even though he had run--and won--the 440 in 48.6 ten minutes before. Armstrong also took the hop, step, and jump at 47 ft, 11 3/4 in.

In the 220 low hurdles, Hatch and Jones likewise finished second and third to pick up important points. Luck was first in 23.5, but Ell Bill Flippin, the obvious choice for second, ran out of the money.

Bulldog captain Luck's brilliant showing went virtually unnoticed, since interest was usually concentrated on the battles for second and third behind him. He won the 100 in 9.9 (.2 off the meet record), the 120 high hurdles in 14.6 (also .2 off), the 220 in 21.5 (.3 off) and the lows in 23.5 (.2 off)--in all, one of the great performance in Harvard-Yale history.

In the mile, Crimson captain Mark Mullin won another classic battle with little Bobby Mack, the Mechanical Man of Yale. Mack bravely led out the race for three quarters, but he ran too slowly. The time at the three-quarter mark was only 3:09.6, and Mullin's 59.6 last lap gave him the race in 4:09.2, a meet record.

Still, Mack stayed with Mullin until the last few yards, and their final head-to-head struggle was worthy of the memorable ones that had gone before.

In those two figures straining together for the tape so many times in the years just past, all that is worthwhile in the Harvard-Yale competition has been exemplified.

Mullin also won the 890 in 1:53.7, leading Eddie Meehan and Harry Rich in a Crimson sweep.