Toward the end of Saturday's track meet, one fan turned to another on the infield and said, "Sheesh, they should change the name to the Big Two-and-a-Half."

And, indeed, perhaps they should, as the third participant in the Big Three meet-Yale--barely took part in Harvard's 82-62-26 win over Princeton and the Elis before a packed house at the newly dedicated track and tennis hall.

Early Riser

The Crimson virtually clinched the meet early, as coach Bill McCurdy stacked some of his best runners in the meet's opening race, the mile, sacrificing some depth in the later middle-distance races.

The strategy worked when John Murphy (4:12.4), John Chafee and Thad McNulty placed 1-2-4 in the mile for Harvard to spot the home team to a 9-2 lead over Princeton. And when Scott Dolson bulled his way to a half-second victory in the 880, the gamble had really paid off.

Yale turned in a healthy showing in the sprint events, nabbing firsts in the hurdles and the dash, but it was the gentlemen in red who dominated most of the middle-distance running events.

Gary Schmidt proved that his sizzling performance against Army was no flike, smoking the opposition in the 440 en route to a half-second win (49.8 seconds). Chris Nicodemus and Ryan Lamppa made it 1-2-3 Harvard by following in Schmidt's footsteps.

The Crimson's Brian McAndrews lost a hearbreaker in the 600, nearly losing a couple of limbs in the process. Not only did McAndrews lose the race to Princeton's Joe Libertelli, 1:13.26 to 1:13.27, but he came within a gnat's eyelash of sustaining a serious injury when the four top finishers collapsed in a heap after lunging for the tape.

Beast of the Bunch

And then came Dolson in the 880. The large, hirsute junior opened up a large lead in the first 440, then held on in the stretch amidst chants of "Beast! Beast!" from the rabid crowd to win in 1:54.7.

McNulty and Murphy came back from the mile to turn in a respectable three-four finish in the 1000, but it was at the pole vault pit that the master performance of the day was taking place.

Harvard junior Geoff Stiles is to a pole what F. John Adams is to a baton, and Saturday he turned in a fortissimo effort in setting a meet and facility record with his 16 ft. 1-1/4 in. leap.

It was strictly a solo effort, as the rest of the competition dropped out at or below the 14-foot mark, leaving Stiles to wage a one-on-one battle with the bar for nearly an hour. Three near misses at 16-6 prevented him from setting a University record.

On the Rack

Co-captain Dan Sullivan racked up another Harvard first in the high jump with a 6 ft. 10 in. vault, but Princeton nabbed the top spots in the long jump and triple jump, with Tiger Tom Brostom setting a facility record of 50 ft. 3 in. in the latter event.