Big Green Teams

Let's look at the record:

In hockey, Dartmouth qualified for the ECAC playoffs for the first time since 1965, finished in a second place tie in the Ivy League with perennial champ Cornell (finally unseated by Harvard after eight years) and during the season collected wins over Harvard and Boston University, the teams that went on to represent the East in the NCAA tournament. Throw in a fine sophomore performance by Tom Fleming, All-Ivy first team and the league's scoring leader to boot.

In swimming, a 9-2 record, a convincing third place performance in the Eastern Seaboard Meet where nine varsity or freshman records were set and nine men qualified for the NCAA meet in late March at Long Beach, Calif.

In skiing, eliminate the downhill race at the NCAA Championships (it was the event that eliminated Dartmouth from contention) and call the season a thorough success. Dartmouth won its own carnival and regained the Eastern title for the first • time since 1970 en route to the NCAAs at Jackson Hole. Horrendous snow conditions eliminated the downhill from the early Eastern competition and by the time the Green racers got to Wyoming, they were no match for the West's best in that event. Dartmouth finished fourth behind Colorado, Wyoming, and Vermont (the team that Dartmouth had handled earlier).

Dartmouth's squash team responded to Coach John Kenfield's prediction (a 9-3 record)' by finishing 8-3, with a virtually certain win over Rochester negated when Rochester cancelled its visit to Hanover due to the fuel shortage. The Green was ranked fourth in the nine-man team ratings behind Harvard, Penn, and Princeton which finished in a three-way tie for the Ivy League title.

For the second year in a row, the Green's indoor track team had an 8-1 dual record but sputtered at the Heptagonals where Navy obliterated Dartmouth and everyone else with an awesome display. There were dramatic record performances by middle distance ace Ed Spinney, triple jumper Warren Cassidy, and Ken Norman in the 440 to ease the disappointment at the Heps.

In gymnastics, a 9-2 record and second place in the Ivy League meet may mark the end of an era. Senior Mike Pancoe won the Ivy rings crown for the fourth time in as many tries, while Jack Nicholson and Dave Howe also won or shared titles. There are still able performers on hand, but it won't be the same without remarkable Mike doing his thing.

Dartmouth's wrestlers made their debut in Ivy League competition, and a 1-6 Ivy record was the obvious factor in a 5-11 season. Nonetheless, senior Chuck Estin was imposing at 190 pounds and won the New England university title in that event, earning a trip to the NCAA meet at lowa State.

The conspicuous loser was basketball, which finished 4-26. There is a positive side in the acclaim for Adam Sutton, the scoring leader for the Green who became the third Dartmouth player in four seasons to win the Ivy League scoring title. (James Brown won it last year and Paul Erland in 1971.) Sutton used his scoring and rebounding ability (he also led Dartmouth on the backboards) to win the coaches' vote as the Ivy sophomore-of-the-year and a spot on the All-Ivy second team. If there's any consolation in negative statistics, only three of eight Ivy teams finished with overall winning records and only one - Penn, the champ for the fifth year in a row - had a winning record against non-league competition. That may say something about the general trend in Ivy basketball.

A year ago, you could count the number of women's teams at Dartmouth on one hand. Now it takes two, and in all likelihood it will take three hands by this time in 1975. The women also have had their share of success this winter, especially in basketball and skiing. The women's basketball squad, led by 4'-11" guard Leslie Aucoin, had a 6-1 record. In skiing, Mary Heller, Melinda Hungerford, and Judy Zimicki are among the nation's best collegiate racers.

That is a basic look at the record. Let's take a look at some of the games and some of the top individual performances.

The early season success in hockey was blunted by a seven-game losing streak, but the Green rebounded to win three of their last four games - .6-3 over Yale and 4-3, 6-4 over Brown while falling to Harvard 6-2. Keys to the comeback that clinched a tourney berth were senior Bob Hayes from Winnipeg, Man., who was sidelined through the losing streak with a back injury, and Fleming, the versatile guy from Brookline, Mass., who finished the season with four hat-trick games and became Dartmouth's first Ivy scoring leader in hockey in 15 years. He had 24 of his 37 points in league games to beat out his cousin, Harvard's Jim McMahon, for top honors. Hayes, earned the Martha Phelan Award as the most valuable player.

Last year. Ron Keenhold's strategy for Dartmouth's swimmers was to reach a December peak for the Princeton meet and then rebuild toward the Eastern championships. The Green beat Princeton by a lot but never regained the form, and the 8-2 record was tarnished by a disappointing eighth-place finish at the Easterns. This winter was a different story. The record was a notch better and third place at the Easterns was where Dartmouth wanted to be - and where the Green wound up. While Princeton upset Harvard in a twohorse race for the title, Dartmouth answered the challenge of North Carolina and Yale to gain the next spot.

There were assorted heroes led by Brad Gilman, the captain from Los Angeles, who ripped five seconds off Dartmouth's 500-yard freestyle record and contributed to record efforts in the 400 medley relay (Dartmouth's only first-place performance in the meet) and the 800 freestyle relay. Sophomores Howard Coye and Paul Cane also produced records as did freshman Tim Hable and Ted Pollard. But the guy who produced the most points, just as he had during the dual-meet season, was sophomore Mark Stebbins from Manchester. N.H. Stebbins shared in three point-producing relays, finished fourth in the 100 freestyle and sixth in the 50 free.

The strongest event for Dartmouth in the NCAA ski meet was cross country where Don Nielsen, Chris Nice and Doug Peterson all cracked the top 15 places. Freshman John Macomber from Concord, Mass., had been a whirlwind all winter in the slalom and took third place in the NCAAs. In a way it was a disappointment. Macomber had the best first run by a substantial margin, but was a shade too cautious on his second run. Joining Macomber near the top was freshman Arne Nielsen from Oslo, Norway, who finished fourth in the NCAA jumping event and had a winter of finishing no worse than fifth in any meet.

The peak of the Dartmouth squash season should have been the intercollegiate championships, but with exams starting within a couple of days, John Kenfield's team was intact for only the first day of the tournament. That was a good day for the Green as every Dartmouth player won his first two matches. "I can't remember when we didn't have someone in the consolation bracket," said Kenfield. Dartmouth finished fifth in the tournament.

Ed Spinney is the junior from Hanson, Mass., who Coach Ken Weinbel figures can become the best miler in Dartmouth history. He came within a whisker of the indoor mile record this winter and took over the 1000-yard record with a 2:12.4 clocking against Brown. That was a warmup piece of speed work a week before the Heps, but there Spinney didn't find himself in the crowded field of seeded runners and finished out of the money. Dartmouth's only points at the Heps came from freshman Dave Woody who was fourth in the high jump. Outside of Woody, the only man who Came through in the championship meets was sophomore Ken Norman who lowered the Dartmouth record for the indoor 440 during a trial heat of the IC4A meet at Princeton.

What went wrong in basketball? Mostly it was a matter of inconsistency. "What we lacked was some killer instinct," said Coach Tom O'Connor. "There wasn't a guy who didn't work hard all season but when we needed the key basket or the big rebound, it wasn't there." One night would find the shooters reasonably hot but the rebounding was missing. The next night it would be just the opposite. While Adam Sutton was the most consistent, and won the Dolly Stark Award as MVP for his efforts, there were others who helped on different nights but never managed to sustain a good performance over a period of games.

Center Mark Donoghue had a 31-point night against Penn and 28-point night against Harvard, the best single-game scoring work in the Ivy League this winter, and was second to Sutton in scoring. Bill Raynor, the captain and guard, was unable to put together the long-range and driving scores that had been his trademark for two years.

Dartmouth was expected to be either a sixth- or seventh-place team in the Ivy League this winter. The Green finished seventh.

There were four women's teams in action, but outside of basketball and skiing the records were on the minus side, not unexpected since it was the first year of competition in swimming (2-4) and gymnastics (1-4). The second-year squash team finished 6-7 and had the nation's secondranked collegian in squash in Barbara Sands, a sophomore from Lakebay, Wash.

Adam Sutton was Ivy League sophomore-of-the-yearand led the league in scoring.

Coeds also contributed to men's basketball. Cheerleaders arrived this season.

The women skiers flash a victory sign after their decisive Winter Carnival win

Chuck Estin won a 59-second pin to takethe New England 190-pound wrestling title.