Junior Mark Faller is in Evanston, Ill., today to vie with the nation's best 158-pound wrestlers for a prize that eluded Harvard matmen throughout the '60's, the NCAA championship.

Faller's coach, John Lee, said earlier this week that the 158-pound field is "wide open." At the same time, because of the caliber of the NCAA's the chances are slim that Faller can go all the way through the finals.

After wrestling at 167 during the regular season. Faller was runner-up in the Eastern championships two weeks ago at Penn State. He wrestled at 160 pounds at the Easterns, howeve, and decided then to push for 158 at the NCAA's.

En route to his high finish at the Easterns, Faller edged Jack Bentz of Lehigh, the favorite and defending champion at 167, 4-3. The leading contender at the NCAA's, 158-pound Dave Martin of Iowa State, defeated Bentz by the same score in a dual meet last January.

Martin Upset

Martin, runner-up at 158 in last year's NCAA tourney, was upset in the Big 8 championships two weeks ago and his loss sparked hope among his NCAA opponents, including Faller.

"Faller has a good pancake that can give anybody trouble," Lee said. "Mark would like to do a good job out here, and we think he will perform very well."

There are only four seeds in the NCAA's so it is hard to tell exactly who Faller's first foe will be or how good he will be. It is certain that there are, as Lee put it, "no dogs in the NCAA's."

Work Out

Faller has been working out each night since the Easterns, wrestling two nine-minute bouts against teammates that come in to help. His weight has steadied at about 160, and only the final two pounds may pose adjustment problems.

The first round of the preliminaries begins at 1:30 p.m. today, and the second round gets under way at 7:30 p.m. Hopefully Faller will advance into Friday's quarterfinals, and then go to the semifinals and finals Saturday afternoon and evening.

Faller is the only Crimson matman at the tournament because of a Harvard financial policy to send only first and second place finishers at the Easterns to the NCAA's.

Lasa year, Faller and teammate Pat Coleman hitch-hiked to Provo, Utah, for the NCAA tournament after they failed to pass the semifinals at the Easterns.