Army snapped the Harvard track team's outdoor dual meet streak at 18 Saturday in what proved to be a crowd-pleasing season finale at Soldiers Field. The Crimson squad turned in some top performances and individual standouts in junior Steve Schoonover and freshman Keith Colburn, but the Cadets took the team honors, 87-67.
Harvard stripped Army of its aura of invincibility early in the meet. Gimpyankled Tim Hatfield and sprinter Wayne Andersen placed one-two in the broad jump, an event the Crimson has zeroed all year Godwin Nwokoye (45 ft. 7 in) and Pat Emery (43 ft. 7 in.) racked up a two-three finish for Harvard in the triple jump, and senior John Newman lumbered over 6 ft. 2 in. in the high jump to snatch second.
More Surprises
These 15 points in the jumps could have given the meet to the Crimson if everything had gone well elsewhere. But it didn't. Sophomore Bruce Hedendal. Heptagonal runner-up in the discus, fell down a flight of stairs Wednesday and didn't score in either the discus or the shot. Harvard's Heptagonal champion 440 relay blew all three of its passes to hand Army an easy win, and sophomore Dick Benka had an off-day in the shot put, scoring only one point.
The meet still produced some tremendous battles. Cadet Van Evans nipped Crimson captain Wayne Andersen in the 100 in 9.8, but the smiling Chicagoan came back with a 21.8 in the 220 to edge Evans.
Jim Baker also dropped his first decision, finishing third to Cadet Bob MacDonald's 4:08.7 mile. But Baker won a thrilling two-mile, coming from third place at the 1 1/2 mark to go by Army's Jim Warner and the tiring Dong Hardin. Baker pranced home in 9:05.
Close Calls
The Black Knights came up with two narrow decisions. Half-miler Greg Camp nosed by Harvard's Trey Burns in the last 100 yards to win in 1:53.4, and Frank McCullough of Army avenged his loss of last week by edging Harvard's Frank Haggerty in the 440 hurdles. Haggerty later pulled off something of an upset in the 120 hurdles by coming from fourth to second place in the last ten yards.
Harvard's Ron Wilson had the best day among the weightmen. His toss of 187 ft. 6 in in the hammer was his season's best but fell 6 ft. off Cadet John Graham's meet-record throw of 193 ft. The Idaho husky also scored the Crimson's only first in the weights, winning the discus with a chuck of 161 it.
Huvelle
In the quarter, Jeff Huvelle and Frank Snowden exploded out of the middle of the pack to take one-two for Harvard. Huvelle won in 48.8. The mile relay went to the Crimson as Snowden. Haggerty, Dave McKelvey, and Huvelle set a stadium record with their winning time of 3:15.7, eclipsing NYU's mark set in 1940.
Pole vaulter Schoonover and freshman Colburn established themselves as national stars with their performances. Schoonover broke meet, stadium, and Harvard records with a jump of 15 ft. 8 in. The stocky junior failed at three attempts to clear the hero-mark of 16 ft.
Colburn's performance came in a non-official freshman half-mile. The red-headed golden-boy followed teammate Royce Shaw through a lightning-fast, first quarter of 52 seconds and then barreled through the final quarter to record a fantastic 1:49.3. The time is more than two seconds better than the Harvard record (but will not count as a record). The only freshman to record a faster time last year was Jim Ryun, and a comparison between the two is not completely unrealistic.
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