Scoring Machine

THE men's lacrosse team had fallen behind Bowdoin, 1-0, in a game early this spring. Then Jeff Hickey took over. The senior attackman leaped high in the air to intercept the Bowdoin goalie's clearing pass. He then made a 180-degree turn and fired the ball into the open net from 20 yards out. It was the first of seven consecutive goals Dartmouth scored against the Polar Bears in a 10-3 victory.

"What Hicks did epitomizes what we expect of him," said Coach Dud Hendrick. "He's the guy we look to if we have trouble scoring." The 21-year-old West Hartford, Connecticut, resident has been a scoring machine for Dartmouth during his four years in Hanover. Through three games this spring Hickey had scored 103 career goals, only four goals shy of the record held by Don Scully '49, and his 141 total points left him only eight points behind the all-time mark of 149 held by John Walters '62.

Hickey also achieved something that no collegiate lacrosse player ever did before: score nine consecutive goals for his team. The 6-foot 3-inch, 200-pounder reeled off the first nine Dartmouth goals of the game to set the NCAA mark in the 12-10 loss to Hofstra, which, at the time, was ranked 11th in the nation. That came two days after Hickey had pumped in eight goals against Baltimore for a 15-12 victory in the season opener. The economics major had scored 17 of his team's 25 goals despite the fact that he and three other teammates were suffering from German measles.

Hickey minimizes the importance of his nine-goal performance. "I didn't even think they kept records of that sort of thing, he admitted. "I didn't realize it was a record until they broadcast it over the loud-speaker. What was unfortunate is that we ended up losing the game, which is more important than any records." Hickey also downplays his assault on the career coring and goal marks, noting that he has played all four years for the varsity while Walters and Scully only played three because there were freshman teams during their eras. "Our whole team's goal is being the number one team in New England in order to make the NCAA playoffs," Hickey added.

"He means an awful lot to the team," said Hendrick. "His greatest asset is that he has a nose for the goal - he can put the ball in the net. He's not especially fast, quick, or strong, but he has a combination of all those assets. He had an extraordinary game against Hofstra and its zone defense. But it's important to note that all those goals were assisted. We have a cast of people to get the ball to him when he's the open man."

One of Hickey's feeders is Co-captain Steve O'Neill of Massapequa, New York. Hendrick likens O'Neill to record-holder Walters. "Steve, like John Walters, is the quarterback-type. And he has Hickey to pass the ball to." O'Neill didn't play last year. The senior attackman was sidelined by a knee operation. "It's nice having a scorer like Hickey," said O'Neill. "It gives everyone on offense a lot more confidence to have him out there. If you get the ball jnto scoring position, you know he can put the ball in. It takes the pressure off some of the other attackmen." O'Neill calls Hickey's Hofstra efforts "incredible."

Hendrick said his team is the best since he's been at Dartmouth. However, he was unable to predict how Dartmouth's improvements would compare with the other teams in the league. "We could finish from second to last; Cornell is the favored team," he said. Hendrick has been pleased with the performance of goalie Charlie Moore, a junior goalie from Lutherville, Maryland, who averaged 21 saves a game through the first three games. He was also anxiously awaiting the return of Joe Nastri, the team's defensive leader who was sidelined with a broken hand. Nastri and Hickey are both graduates of Kingswood-Oxford prep school. They also teamed up to help win the football championship last fall. For their efforts, the two defensive stars were named all-Ivy.

Hickey, who has been playing lacrosse since the eighth grade, declined to pick out a favorite sport. "I enjoy playing both lacrosse and football," he said. "I just like to compete." That might make him Dartmouth's first-team all-Ivy lacrosse selection in a dozen years.