SKIING

Trying to beat the University of Denver's ski team is like trying to beat the Yale swimmers: You may think you have a chance but there's really no way, pal, no way at all.

Dartmouth Coach Al Merrill takes the logical approach. You don't concede until the last man is off the jump. That's just what he did at the end of the spectacle at Cannon Mountain on March 4-7, though he probably knew after the third event - the two-run slalom - that his Indians hadn't made up enough ground to overtake Denver.

It all ended under sunny skies (and just before the eclipse cast an eery tint across the horizon) with Denver having a score of 386.6 while Dartmouth, for the second year in a row, was the bridesmaid at 378.8. That's not at all bad when you know that the Green was ahead of three other western powers - Colorado, Wyoming and Fort Lewis - but Al Merrill still would have enjoyed the opportunity to hang one on old Willy Schaeffler, the crusty Austrian who has built Denver into the most imposing force in intercollegiate skiing.

Actually, you'd think it was the championship of Greater Oslo the way Denver opened the meet. Otto Tschudi, a Norwegian, won the giant slalom and Ole Hansen won the 15-kilometer cross-country race for the Pioneers. From that point, though, Denver had to resort to its superior depth to maintain the lead.

Two Colorado skiers, Mike Porcarelli and Jay Rand, won the slalom and 50-meter jump, and while Dartmouth made a strong move in the slalom, it wasn't enough to overtake the lead that Denver had built through the cross-country racing.

To no one's surprise, Chuck Bent and Sheldon Perry were Dartmouth's top performers in the NCAA meet. Bent, who subsequently was honored by the Eastern Ski Writers Association as the top performer of the 1970 season, was eighth in the giant slalom and fourth in the slalom. Perry was sixth and ninth in these events and the pair finished 4-5 in the Alpine Combined scoring.

Teyck Weed, who joined Bent as a junior co-captain and who spent much of January competing in Europe with the U.S. Nordic team, gave the Indians a glimmer of success as he finished third in the cross country, the event dominated by the Western colleges. Weed also finished 14th in the jumping (Dartmouth's Scott Berry was a relatively disappointing ninth) but the hopes for upsetting Denver had gone pretty much by the boards after the Indians were able to gain only 2.7 points in the slalom. Denver more than made that up in the jumping.

Perhaps we shouldn't say that Denver can't be had. A look at the Dartmouth lineup reveals that every one of the skiers involved in the scoring for the Green will be back at it next year. Maybe ...