Skiing

Dartmouth's other NCAA representative this winter was the Big Green ski team, which was one of the Eastern teams selected to compete in the championships on the basis of winning the Middlebury Carnival meet. This was fortunate inasmuch as Dartmouth had been selected to host the national meet this year.

The national four-event meet was held at Dartmouth, February 28 to March 2, with skiers from 23 colleges and universities represented and seven full college teams competing for meet honors. Denver University, which had won the NCAA title for the four previous years, was favored to repeat this year, with Colorado University, Dartmouth and Middlebury all conceded an outside chance.

When the powder snow had settled, Dartmouth's all-around team in its first year under Coach Al Merrill emerged the victor with 561.2 points to 550.6 for Denver. Colorado was third, Middlebury fourth, St. Lawrence fifth, New Hampshire sixth, and Michigan Tech seventh.

Further honors came to Dartmouth when it was announced that Dave Harwood had won the Skimeister title for the best competitor in all four events. Harwood put together a fourth place in the downhill, fifth in the slalom, tenth in cross country and 19th in jumping to win the coveted award.

Generally, the most important ski meet ever held in Hanover went well, although high winds on Friday caused postponement of the downhill race, scheduled to be held on the Cannon Mountain trail at Franconia, until Sunday morning. The same winds blew down communication wires at the Dartmouth Skiway and delayed the start of the Saturday morning slalom races for almost two hours.

The Big Green jumped into an early lead when Bob Gebhardt of Dartmouth put together two beautiful runs through a tricky 32-gate slalom course to finish first. Dave Vorse, who only recently returned to action, came in second, while Dartmouth co-captains, Dave Harwood and Bill Smith, finished fifth and fifteenth respectively.

In the Saturday afternoon cross-country race the Big Green slipped a bit, but showed surprising team strength with John Ceely coming home over the nine-mile course in fourth place and Bill Smith, Bill Taylor and Dave Harwood taking seventh, eighth and tenth places, respectively.

In the Sunday morning downhill race at Cannon Mountain, Dartmouth's Bill Smith was just nosed out of first place by Gary Vaughn of Norwich, but Smith in second place was followed in order by Vorse, Harwood and Gebhardt and this domination of the downhill, coupled with the strong slalom showing, gave the Indians a big lead in the Alpine combined.

Oddvar Ronnestad, Denver University's four-event ace, and clearly one of the top skiers in the meet, took jump honors, although a disqualification in the slalom and some difficulty in the downhill prevented him from being considered for Skimeister honors. Frank Noel took 11th in the jump for the Indians, with Peterson 16th, Taylor 17th and Harwood 19th - enough to give Dartmouth second place in the team scoring, behind Denver, and to assure the Big Green of the meet victory.

The newly created Walter Prager Trophy, named in honor of Dartmouth's former ski coach, was awarded to the Big Green skiers at a Sunday banquet and for the first time since the NCAA Skiing Championships were established in 1953, Dartmouth took its place as the best college ski team in the nation.

This was a richly deserved honor for all members of the Big Green squad and for Coach Al Merrill, whose guidance and skillful direction of the team and individual members were major factors in Dartmouth's success.