Very Green Grass

AFTER beating Penn in its first Ivy League game in mid-October, Dartmouth's soccer team lost tough decisions to Brown and Connecticut (two teams that went on to the NCAA regional tournament finals) and to Harvard. As November arrived, Tom Griffith's team had a 2-6 record and was struggling. They'd scored two goals in three games, and Frank Gallo, the guy who had all the scoring credentials from his sophomore and junior seasons, was out of commission, bothered by the leg he had broken prior to the 1974 season.

Things were hardly promising, but Griffith did some juggling and all of a sudden things began to happen. Yale (5-3 in overtime), Columbia (4-2) and New Hampshire (2-1) were beaten, and then came the ultimate moment of Griffith's second season. Cornell, ranked third nationally and leading the Ivy League with a 5-0 record, arrived at Chase Field a solid favorite - and left a solid loser, 1-0, in perhaps the finest game that has been played on the old sod in more than a decade.

From 2-6, the record had moved to 6-6 (4-2 in the Ivy) and the Green had a firm grip on second place in the standings and a shot at a share of the Ivy title. The reasons for it all: with Gallo gone, Griffith moved senior Steve Alford to the front line. His play, the continuing good work of Bruce Bokor, the arrival of junior Charlie Krupanszky as an outstanding midfielder, and the scoring punch provided by freshman Tim Ehrsam, have been the measurable factors. Ehrsam had the decisive goal against Cornell in a game that saw Dartmouth hold a 15-5 advantage in shots in the second half. Cornell, presuming its moment would come, discovered midway through the second half that it couldn't wrest control of the match from Dartmouth. Then signs of panic and bewilderment crept over faces that had been making people see Red all season.

After the Cornell high, disaster. Dartmouth's turn for bewilderment came in the last game at Princeton, where so much was at stake and where the home team pushed in four goals while allowing none. That disappointing loss left Dartmouth 6-7 overall and 4-3 in the league, placing the Green in a three-way tie for second place.

IN cross-country and field hockey, it's been more of the success story that made the fall season run its course so swiftly. With sophomore Dean Stephens the perpetual pacesetter, Dartmouth's runners finally put the "bunch running" preached by Coach Ken Weinbel into practice. Harvard was obliterated in dual competition, and Northeastern, the team that later won the IC4A championship, was another dual victim in a 4-1 season.

Group running, the ability to have the squad run as a pack and develop a block (so to speak) at the finish, has been Weinbel's theory for three seasons. In the past there always seemed to be a weak link, an injury or some sort of misfortune that produced a fatal flaw. In a field of 79 runners from the Ivy schools plus Army and Navy at the Heptagonal Meet in New York, Stephens led the way in a 11-14-15-16-27 performance that was good for third place behind Navy and Princeton.

A week later in the IC4A Meet, Northeastern got the title but Dartmouth finished sixth (to qualify for the NCAA championship) and produced what Weinbel feels "was the best team time (total combined time of the five scoring runners) ever run by a Dartmouth team in a championship meet." Stephens was 22nd in a field of 150 runners from 29 teams, and every Dartmouth time was a best-ever for the five-mile distance.

MARY Corrigan, the Irish lass who coached Dartmouth's field hockey team for the first time this fall, will have her hands full improving on the first-year record of seven wins and three ties that (exclusive of rugby) is the best of any fall team. Debbie Sortor, a freshman who happens to be Jake Crouthamel's niece, was the scoring leader, but much credit, too, goes to Janie Kirrstetter, Phyllis Chang, Mitch Lavigne, Thayer Wendell, Capt. Sandy Helve, and Karen Sawyer who provided the overall balance and savvy to give the rookie coach a difficult chore when it comes to encores. Kirrstetter, Chang, and Wendell made the Northeast Sectional Tournament "all" team, and Helve and Lavigne were second team picks.

End the fall season which, overall, turned out quite well and sets a tempo for winter - the second season that was launched with the opening of Thompson Arena four hours after the final guns echoed across the soccer and football fields at Princeton.

Dan Mackesey, goalie for third-ranked Cornell, makes a desperate save (top), but asplit-second later Steve Alford (11) and Tim Ehrsam (8) celebrate Ehrsam's winner.

Dan Mackesey, goalie for third-ranked Cornell, makes a desperate save (top), but asplit-second later Steve Alford (11) and Tim Ehrsam (8) celebrate Ehrsam's winner.