On a warm afternoon in Princeton, New Jersey, the Crimson harriers finished sandwiched between Big Three rivals Princeton and Yale yesterday, falling to the fleet-footed Tigers, 19-40, but beating the bushed Bulldogs, 27-31.

Taking full advantage of Yale and Harvard confusion concerning the path of the five-mile course, the host Princeton squad took the first two and six of the first eleven places.

Psyched Out

The misunderstanding psyched out the Crimson runners who ran 1-2-3 at the mile, as they followed a map which detoured them 60 yards further than the Tigers. The extra distance upset Reed Eichner in particular. After crossing the mile in second place, behind Ed Sheehan and ahead of captain Stein Rafto, he finally finished fourth for Harvard and thirteenth overall.

No Holding Back

Jerry Kooymans and Bruce Bond ran 1-2 for the Tigers, the former winning the race in 24:56. Yale frontrunner Geoffrey Mearns followed in third place finishing a few seconds ahead of Crimson captain Rafto who refused to be held back by the extra yardage he had to run and came home a gutsy fourth, in 25:22.

Only 19 seconds but four places farther back in this tightly bunched race finished Ed Sheehan. Mark Meyer, six seconds in front of Eichner, followed Sheehan in twelfth place, two slots ahead of fifth Crimson harrier Thad McNulty who came home in 26:23.

Noteworthy Performances

Otherwise, for the Crimson, Noel Scidmore and Peter Fitzsimmons turned in particularly noteworthy performances as they finished eighteenth and twentyfourth. Scidmore ran yesterday for the first time since recovering from a bout with viral pneumonia and Fitzsimmons, all-Ivy as a freshman and sophomore, competed for the first time in 1977, a year in which he has been sidelined with tendonitis.

Coach Bill McCurdy felt all his runners ran impressively, and as they slowly return to health after an injury infested campaign, he looks forward to being even more impressed in the near future.