Start with a talented and confident group of athletes, throw in a little illness, take away some key runners, toss in some mental mistakes, sprinkle in a bit of bad luck and you've got the Harvard men's track team last weekend at Gordon Track.

Then take this team and put it up against the two best teams in the Ivy League and you've got a problem.

After a long day of frustration, the Crimson scored only 35 points to Yale's 58 and Princeton's 77.

"This was such a different meet and a different team from the [Greater Boston Championships]," said Harvard Coach Frank Haggerty, referring to the men's victory in the Greater Bostons. "If we had people feeling good and strong, this meet would have been different."

Several members of the team either were out due to illness and/or injury, or were recovering from earlier physical problems. Consistent point-getters Brian Cann, Gino Patrizio, John Mee and John Shaw could not compete.

"A lot of people had been sick and missed a lot of training," Haggerty said. "A lot of people lost steam. As I told them yesterday, whether they're sick or not they're going to have to compete."

High jumper Chris Sullivan took Haggerty's words to heart and placed second with a jump of 6-ft., 8 3/4-in., despite a sprained ankle.

"I have to give [Sullivan] credit," Haggerty said. "He's been a great jumper for four years."

Sullivan finished behind Princeton's Charles Forlidas, who shattered the 1975 H-Y-P meet record with a breathtaking 7-ft., 1 1/2-in. leap to claim first place.

The usually-dominating Derek Horner placed fourth in the long jump with a 6.85-meter leap and then ran his best 55-meter dash of the season (6.39) to place second by one hundreth of a second.

The Tigers and the Elis consistently took first through third places while Harvard had to settle for too many fourth and fifth places.

"Princeton and Yale had really tough teams," Harvard Co-Captain Don LaVigne said. "Guys like Derek Horner, who usually dominate, came up short. I finished fourth in the 400-meter run and the coach expected me to run a better race. It's such a big rivalry, I think some people tried too hard. There aren't too many redeeming aspects about this meet."

The Heptagonal Championships, which will be held next week at Cornell with ten teams competing, will be a big challenge for the ailing Crimson.

"Even if kids get better, they still won't get the hard training they missed," Haggerty said. "We have to work on mental strategy as opposed to physical."