WITH THE BIG GREEN TEAMS
THE two teams dominating the Dartmouth sports scene this past month have been the basketball and hockey teams. The Big Green basketball squad, favored to win the Ivy title for the second straight year, is still having trouble but somehow hangs in there to win, often on last-second shots. It now has racked up twelve consecutive victories, including nine Ivy League wins, to tie with Princeton for top honors.
Dartmouth's hockey team, on the other hand, has been the "dark horse" in the Ivy race this winter. During the past month it has won seven of eight contests, including four Ivy League games, to fashion an 11-6 record thus far and a perfect Ivy mark of five wins and no defeats to stay on top of that circuit.
The Big Green varsity swimming team has also shown surprising strength by continuing to set new Spaulding Pool records while winning two of its last three meets for a 5-2 record to date. The squash team suffered two setbacks in five matches this past month for a 5-2 record. The varsity trackmen lost a dual meet to Harvard and placed second to Cornell in a triangular meet with Cornell and Colgate, while the wrestling team, after losses to Springfield and Harvard, defeated the University of Massachusetts for an even 2-2 record.
Dartmouth's domination of Eastern collegiate skiing came to an end this past month as the Indians dropped their first Dartmouth Carnival meet in nine years to Middlebury and again placed second to Middlebury the next weekend at the Williams Carnival.
A major announcement during the past month came from Dartmouth football coach Bob Blackman who confirmed that he had asked to have his name withdrawn from consideration for the head coaching job at the University of Colorado. The position was a tempting one in many respects, but Blackman's decision to withdraw was another indication of his genuine liking for the Dartmouth post.
With just three weeks of contests ahead, the varsity team totals, as reported above, show 40 wins against only 18 defeats. On the freshman level, the freshman "A" basketball squad has notched five wins against four defeats and the "B" squad has lost all three contests, the Pea Green hockey team has a 6-3 record, the swimming team has won two and lost two, the freshman runners are undefeated in four meets to date, and the squash team has been defeated in all three matches. Freshman totals show a close 17-15 split, but varsity and freshman figures together give a very respectable mark of 57 wins and 33 losses.
Late Scores The basketball team defeated Princeton, 71-59, at Hanover, Feb. 21, to take the league lead. At New Haven that night, the hockey team defeated Yale, 5-4, to maintain a 6-0 league record.
