Tracksters hitting stride

Track coaches Carl Wallin and Vin Lananna are sporting wide grins this winter. The Dartmouth male tracksters, led by junior Jim Sapienza, have blown away most of the dual meet competition, and more than a dozen athletes are heading for the IC4A Championship at Princeton in early March.

With an eye towards the NCAA Championship and Olympic trials, Sapienza cut back on his efforts early in the indoor season before picking up the pace. It paid off. In his first indoor meet of the season, the Yale Relays, he ran the 5,000 meters in 13:56.8, good for the NCAA Outdoor Championship in June. Sapienza later beat the standard for the 3,000 meters at an invitational meet in Boston and as a result, travels to the NCAA Indoor Championship at Syracuse in March.

Freshmen Trey Gum and Keith Boykin give Dartmouth speed in the shorter events along with senior Pat Lavery. And veterans Dan Gray, Frank Powers, and Shawn O'Neal are improving with age.

In the field events, Jeff Jackson stars in the pole vault while Andy Trimble, a New Hampshire native, is Wallin's top weightman. Senior co-captain Tom Van Zandt has twice tied the indoor high jump mark at 6'10¼".

"I've been delighted with our performances this year," said Wallin. "We're still very young and we've had luck on our side. And this team has competed well and improved together."

Jim Sapienza 85, shown here in last year's Dartmouth Relays, just took 3rd placein the NCAA meet at Syracuse as we were going to press. According to CoachLananna, Sapienza is probably the best distance runner at Dartmouth since theearly '60s, when Tom Laris '61 starred in the 2-mile event.