With Big Green Teams
DARTMOUTH'S spring teams, with the exception of baseball and rowing, closed out their schedules during the third week of May. The varsity golf team defeated Harvard and Amherst by identical 6-1 scores to record twelve wins and only four defeats, while the tennis team, with a 6-3 win over Amherst and a 9-0 thumping of Middlebury, showed thirteen wins and four losses. The lacrosse team finished strong with a 9-5 win over Colgate and a 10-3 victory over Penn for a four-four season record, while the track team, as previously reported, won two dual meets and lost one.
Elsewhere on this page will be found the won-lost records for all Dartmouth teams during the 1957-58 year just ended. These show a cumulative total of 181 contests won by Dartmouth teams against only 101 losses and six ties, the best over-all record of the modern era in Dartmouth sports. More important than the results is the fact that some 500 Dartmouth undergraduates participated on varsity teams, while nearly 1,000 athletes engaged in some form of freshman sports activity. Of course, there is duplication in these figures.
Dartmouth's accomplishment in major sports was unique in many respects and possibly unequalled for any year. The football team gained national recognition and came within one game of winning the Ivy League championship. The Big Green basketball team did win the Ivy League title and its first two games in the N.C.A.A. Eastern Tournament. The Dartmouth ski team, in its first season under Coach Al Merrill, won all its major meets and climaxed a brilliant season by winning the N.C.A.A. Skiing Championship, the first time this honor has come to Dartmouth. And this spring, a rejuvenated Dartmouth baseball team won thirteen contests and lost only four to be selected for an N.C.A.A. berth in District I.
Actually the Dartmouth baseball team did not go far in the N.C.A.A. tourney. The Indians met the University of Connecticut in a double-header, with the winner scheduled to play Holy Cross. Southpaw Art Quirk pitched the first game for the Indians and allowed no runs until the eighth inning when a single and sacrifice put a UConn runner on third base and he scored on one of Quirk's rare wild pitches to give Connecticut a 1-0 victory. In the second game five Dartmouth hurlers went to the mound as Connecticut unlimbered their batting power and won handily, 10-0. A day later Holy Cross edged the UConns, 2-1, in ten innings to advance into the semi-final round.
The Dartmouth Rowing Club crews, after some 12,000 miles of rowing (that's what the Club reports) are still at it. During the June reunion weekend, the heavy- weight crews got in some training by competing against M.I.T. on the Connecticut for the benefit of visiting alumni, while the most unique race of the day pitted a boat of alumni oarsmen against a crew of local afficianados, largely made up of Club Stewards. At stake was the coveted "Schlitz Trophy" which was promptly consumed in a brief ceremony at a tent placed conveniently near the finish line of the race course.
A week later, in more serious vein, the Dartmouth heavyweight varsity, jayvee and freshman boats took to the water at Lake Onondaga, New York, to compete in the classic I.R.A. Regatta against eleven of the best college teams in the nation.
Th.e Dartmouth crews did well in the I.R.A. Regatta. The varsity and jayvee boats finished seventh and the freshman boat sixth, ahead of Princeton. The varsity crew battled all the way for fourth place and indeed was in third place for the first two miles of the race. However, as the finish neared the Dartmouth eight could not quite pick up the stroke count and were passed by Syracuse, Princeton and Penn. Dartmouth, by placing seventh, defeated Columbia and Wisconsin. This marked the second year that Dartmouth has finished in seventh place, but this year less than six seconds separated them from fourth place Princeton. The jayvee race was somewhat disappointing as Dartmouth finished seventh, beating out M.I.T. and Columbia.
But amidst all the excitement engendered by Dartmouth teams this spring, football coach Bob Blackman and his able staff of assistants were spending their time mapping plans for this coming fall and getting set for the opening practice whistle on September 2. Here's what they report:
