SWIMMING
You know the line, "The best laid plans ..."
So does Ron Keenhold.
Dartmouth's swimming season peaked on December 2 when Princeton was drawn and quartered in Michael Pool. It was a tremendous achievement but those split seconds that were needed to wrap up Dartmouth's best-ever season never quite materialized.
Just as the Green used tenths of a second to defeat Yale last year, the Elis did it to Dartmouth this year, winning the final freestyle relay by three-tenths of a second and the meet, 62-51.
It was just as close a week later as Yale edged Princeton but then the Elis were caught by Harvard in a fashion that rivaled Dartmouth's win over Princeton.
As a result, Yale and Harvard shared the Eastern League title with 6-1 records while Dartmouth and Princeton followed at 5-2.
It was close and Keenhold's team still had it's crack at the pack in the Eastern Seaboard meet.
No soap. Princeton, saving its best for last, mangled the Seaboard meet field. The Tigers were 120 points better than runnerup North Carolina State, and while Dartmouth's swimmers set five College records, the Green could manage only 118 points (Princeton had 361).
"We never got the big race we needed to get going," said Brad Gilman, the new captain from Los Angeles. "Our people had exams on their minds and when Princeton got the big jump on the field in the first day it was really all over."
Dartmouth's top performers at the Eastern meet were freshmen Mark Stebbins and Howard Coye. They combined for 50 of the Green's total points, Coye set Dartmouth records in the 400 individual medley and the 1650 freestyle and Stebbins set frosh records in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle races.
The other record efforts came from reliable Jim Bayles in the 500 freestyle and from freshmen Dave Magnus in the 100 backstroke and Kim Windrath in the 200 backstroke.
Keenhold took ten swimmers to the NCAA meet, hoping to regroup and add some meaning to a good effort that, like the hockey season, was "almost but not quite." But, then, what's wrong with an 8-2 record?
Fred Riggall, winner of the Martha PhelanAward as the hockey team's most valuableplayer, battles for the puck in the 2-2 tie atHarvard. He led in scoring this season with41 points.
