With Big Green Teams

As One Sports season approaches its end, another is already in the making. The Big Green football team at this point is prepping for the final game with Princeton, while the varsity basketball and hockey squads already have a week's practice under their belts.

As predicted in these columns last month, the Dartmouth varsity teams have, on the whole, improved during the last days of competition. Coach Tom Dent's soccer teams scored victories over Connecticut, Harvard, Brown, B.U. and Cornell to wind up with a season record of six wins against only two defeats. The crosscountry runners, who lost only to Army in dual meets, wound up with sixth place in the Heptagonals and a record of three wins in four attempts. However, the varsity football team has experienced its worst season for some time and currently has only two wins against six defeats going into the final contest with Princeton.

Potentially the Dartmouth football squad is better than the record indicates. It is puzzling that they could romp against Columbia by a 38-14 score on one Saturday and then lose ingloriously to a weak Cornell team 13-7 on the following Saturday. While there are no All-Americans on the squad, there are nonetheless some fairly talented players; but for some reason they don't function together as a unit, or the spark in most cases doesn't seem to be there. Call it what you will, Dartmouth has lost games this fall, notably to Harvard and Cornell, which they should have won. But let's move on and examine the more recent games the Indians have played.