Aquamen Romp at Eastern Seaboards

PHILADELPHIA. Pa.--Scoring individual first places in three events and collecting another host of top-six finishes the final day, the Harvard men's swim team increased its final victory margin over arch-rival Princeton to 106, and wrapped up its second consecutive Eastern Swimming Championship here Saturday.

The Crimson's 506-point avalanche (Princeton scored 400 and Yale finished third with 191) is the largest ever amassed at the Easterns under a 12-place scoring system. This total demolished the record of 461 held by Yale's 1961 squad, which included triple Olympic gold medalist Don Schollander.

Perhaps more impressive is the fact that ten Harvard swimmers--from times recorded here and during the dual meet--have now qualified for the NCAA Championships in a total of 16 events, including all three relays.

Saturday's onslaught typified the Crimson's performance in the three-day meet. Headliners David Lundberg, Ron Raikula and Bobby Hacket each won their specialty, the 200-yd. breaststroke, the 200-yd. backstroke and the 1650-yd. freestyle, respectively, but it was the number of Harvard finalists that overwhelmed the opposition.

"They have so many good guys it's ridiculous," one rival coach was heard mumbling to another. "It was nice of them to invite us to their intrasquad meet, though," the other replied.

Any coach would normally consider his team to be strong and exceptionally well balanced if it could place a man in the finals of each event. The amazing aquamen averaged two positions among the top six the last day and held 32 of 90 possible finals slots overall.

Anchors Aweigh

This high-quality depth allowed the Crimson to avenge last month's dual meet loss to Princeton even though the Tigers won nine gold medals this weekend to Harvard's eight.

But of all the Crimson triumphs, Hackett's was the most heartening. Shaking off the virus that had shackled him the first two days, the irrepressible distance man seized the lead in the first lap of swimming's equivalent to the mile and gradually built up a ten-second victory margin.

Considering the state of his health and the fact that he is saving his shave for the NCAAs, Hackett's time of 15:14.94 (which only three people bettered at last year's national meet) was nothing short of spectacular.

Backstroker Raikula, aware that no one in the 200-yd. breaststroke field could seriously challenge him, also swam with the NCAAs in mind.

"Last year I ended up in the first heat of both my events there," the slight but ultra-smooth Kansan commented. "It's tough to qualify [for finals] if you don't have competition in the heats, so I hope I get seeded better this time."

His seemingly effortless 1:51.33 may or may not get him in a fast heat at nationals, but it was a full three seconds faster than anyone else at Easterns could do.

Triple-winner David Lundberg's long-awaited rematch with Princeton ace John Christensen was a wipe-out. Christensen opened a slight lead in the first 50, but Lundberg caught him at the third turn and left the defending champion in his wake, churning home in 2:03.40.

Lundberg, who now faces the enviable choice of picking which three of the four events he has qualified in he wishes to swim at NCAAs, shared the meet's high-point trophy with Princeton captain Andy "Beaver" O'Hara.

Harvard's 400-yd. freestyle relay of Lundberg, Hackett, Jack Gauthier (who snagged sixth in the 100 freestyle Saturday) and Mike Coglin swam second to Princeton in the final race, but qualified for nationals and barely missed the Harvard school record in 3:02.80.