Warming Efforts in a Cold Season

IN a winter season when the bright moments in the Dartmouth sports scene seem depressingly will-o'-the-wisp, there have been performances that provide positive subjects for conversation:

. A quartet of wrestlers that has thrust Dartmouth into a much-improved status in the Ivy League;

. A mile relay team in track that has stamped itself as the best in Dartmouth history and raised hopes for what could be the Green's best showing in the Heptagonal Meet in many years;

. Some swimmers who have added glitter to a won-lost record that will be good, albeit not quite as good as in recent seasons, and

. A performance in skiing during the Dartmouth Winter Carnival that atoned for an unexpected slow start.

All of this has helped to ease the burden in what generally has proved to be a long, cold season. But a winter of good individual efforts can draw attention away from the fact that not many of Dartmouth's teams are going to come away with winning records.

The best indoor record should belong to track, which at the moment has a 5-1 record and should add three more wins. The other top record belongs to the women's squash team which was 6-2 in mid-February. A record that includes five wins in basketball is hardly auspicious, but considering that the Green won but four games a year ago and was expected to be hard-pressed to match that total this season demonstrates that things aren't all bad.

What has hurt most is the showing in hockey. Dartmouth was supposed to be a contender in the Ivy League and in ECAC Division One, but a book could be written about the pitfalls suffered by the skaters, leaving them with only four wins at this juncture.

But let's accentuate the positive: There was more than a modest element of drama in alumni Gym when Penn visited for wrestling. It seemed like a long afternoon in the making as the invaders built a 23-5 lead. There were four matches remaining, and it would take pins in at least three of them - and wins in all four - to pull out a victory.

First, Rick Clark won with a pin in 61 seconds of the 167-pound match. Then, sophomore Kevin Young came through with a solid decision at 177. Now it was 23-14. The 190-pound match produced another pin by Captain Jim Conterato. Enter Reggie Williams, the all-everything line-backer in football. A decision would tie the match, a pin would win. In a nod, Williams had the pin and Dartmouth had a 26-23 win that Coach Jerry Berndt could justifiably call "biggest victory in Dartmouth wrestling history."

With four matches remaining, this quartet has stamped itself as one of the most imposing groups in Ivy wrestling this winter. All told, they had a 25-6 record heading into the stretch with Conterato unbeaten and Williams showing a 7-1 record The Green's dual record of 6-6-1 isn't really a measure of how quickly Berndt has brought his team to a point of being competitive in the demanding Ivy League. Like Williams, Conterato and Young are football linebackers and their performances on the mat give some notion of why Dartmouth's football defense was so effective last fall.

Another quartet (lately become quintet) that has also made tremendous strides is the Green's mile relay team. In a dual meet with Boston College, the combination of Bob Coburn, Joe Duncan, Rich Nichols, and Ken Norman set a Dartmouth record of 3:19.8, breaking a 12-year-old standard.

The same combination didn't set a record but won in tough traffic during one of the grueling mile relays at the prestigious Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden. Against Yale, with Dan Tagatac filling in for the injured Nichols, the mark was lowered to 3:19.37. The reason for optimism concerning the approaching Heps is obvious: Dartmouth is running faster than the winning time for the relay at the Heps during the past two years, and the meet record is barely a second away.

In swimming, the won-lost record of Coach Ron Keenhold's team will be on the plus side once again and two of the biggest reasons are freestyle sprinter Mark Stebbins (he could be the best in the East at 50 and 100 yards this winter) and freshman diver John Evans (he may be second only to Princeton's Billy Heinz, the defending Eastern champ.)

When Dartmouth, the presumed favorite, was left holding a tarnished reputation by its host during the Vermont Carnival that launched the team ski season, folks wondered, "What happened?" Well, the Alpine corps wasn't as sharp as expected - actually, skiers not ranked as the Green's best were given a chance to race at UVM.

At its own Carnival, Dartmouth brought out the big guns, including senior Laurie Gaudin who led a domination of the slalom that gave Dartmouth a lead of more than 30 points. In fact, no one came close to catching Dartmouth as Gaudin, Tim Bishop, and Rob Singer provided more points in the giant slalom, while the Nordic squad, featuring jumpers Chris Berggrav, Arne Nielsen and Tom Reaper, did the same.

On the women's side, Dartmouth also charged to victory in the Carnival with Anne Thomas (cross-country) and Ann Van Curan (slalom and giant slalom) winning for the Green.

Hop-scotching around the winter scene: Basketball continues to be competitive even if the wins are few. Adam Sutton, out for a month with a broken foot, returned for two games (Dartmouth won both, over St. Anselm's and Columbia) before he reinjured the foot at Cornell and was lost again. The Green's first Ivy win at home came as Jim Beattie scored 20 and Yale fell, 72-66.

In hockey, the Green clipped Boston College, Penn and Yale, and appeared to be on the move in mid-January. Since then, five losses (four on the road and two by one goal) have cast gloom on a picture that has been brightened only a bit by the scoring of Tom Fleming and the steady play of Ken Pettit. Fleming had a hat trick at Cornell, but it didn't ease the sting of a 9-3 loss to the Red who beat Dartmouth in a gutty overtime game earlier at Davis Rink.

Dartmouth's squash team has run into a similar problem of losing the close ones, but the play of Captain Sandy Tierney and junior Scott McCallister has been a bright light. In gymnastics, the Green hopes were dampened when veteran Dave Howe, an all-around performer, was lost in midseason with a broken leg suffered during a dismount as he won the high bar in a meet with Vermont.

Women's sports: Basketball had a good comeback win over New England College with Leslie Aucoin again the spark, while the squash team, led by Sandy Helve and Ann Witsil, had a 4-2 record while placing sixth in the Howe Cup tournament.

To the mat tumbles a Princeton heavyweight in Reggie Williams' awesome grasp.