The Spring Season

WHEN Dartmouth's baseball team re- turned from its spring trip with three victories in 14 games, it wasn t an imposing record but it brought the total number of wins achieved by teams under the tutelage of Tony Lupien during 19-plus seasons to 299. It seemed natural to make more than passing reference to the pending milestone that would put him in company with Jeff Tesreau and Eddie Jeremiah (who did it in hockey) as Dartmouth's 300win coaches.

Lupe wanted no part of it. "I didn't win those games, the players did. Don't make me look like a smart guy," he said. So the phrase "300th win for teams coached by Tony Lupien" became part of the next release and, unfortunately, a couple after that until the Green went to Providence and found the hits that hadn't been gushing forth until that Friday in mid-April. Brown was victimized, 18-1.

After 22 straight games on the road the Dartmouth baseballers had four wins, and while the Green figures to win a dozen or so, it will be the longest of Lupe's 20 seasons.

Jeff Hickey was a good linebacker on the freshman football team last fall and may be a better attackman on the varsity lacrosse team this spring. He was the leader of a long list of heroes who contributed to a 10-8 victory over Penn (ranked seventh nationally at the time), a win that was the best for a Dartmouth lacrosse team since the Green won the Ivy title in 1965. Hickey scored three goals as Dartmouth rallied from a 7-3 deficit. "Some people will figure it was an upset," said Coach Dud Hendrick. "I'd like to think it's the start of what this team can really do." First-ranked Cornell, alas, was not so obliging in an earlier outing, scoring 26 goals to six for Dartmouth.

Doubles is still the name of the game for John Kenfield's tennis team. Given a chance to pull a match out with a sweep of the pairs play, Dartmouth's track record has been excellent. It happened at Yale as the Elis, heavily favored, took a 4-2 lead into the doubles. Dartmouth took the three matches in straight sets and returned from 16 matches on the road to open the home season with an 8-8 record.

Jill Eilertsen is a sophomore from Spokane. In the first intercollegiate track meet for the Dartmouth women's team, a 64-54 win over Radcliffe, Eilertsen won the shot put, discus, and long jump before anchoring the winning 440 relay team. On the women's scene this spring, Eilertsen, whose best event is the shot put, joins the crew (untested at this stage but expected to be among the nation's best) as the encouraging stories.

For three years Rob Duncan has worked to become a national factor in that loneliest of events, the marathon. He finished 72nd in the Boston Marathon in 1974 and again in 1975, and last February he won the Admissions Day Marathon in Arizona but missed qualifying for the Olympic trials by less than two minutes. In his third crack at the Boston race, he needed a time of two hours 23 minutes to make the trials. Running with 2,138 legal entrants (and who knows how many illegal starters), Duncan came home 31st but his time in the sweltering heat was nine minutes slower than the qualifying mark. While it appears the Dartmouth junior will have to be a spectator this time around, Bob Varsha '73, on leave from law studies at Emory University, won the Mardi Gras Marathon in New Orleans with a time of 2:20.50. Funds permitting, he's headed for the Olympic trials at Eugene, Oregon, on May 22.