University of Virginia Library

State Track Meet

Witherspoon's 48-6 Sets Mark

By STEVE GASKE

By virtue of its 73 team
points, William & Mary
successfully defended its title
in the Virginia State Track and
Field Championships yesterday
at Lannigan Field.

Virginia placed a somewhat
disappointing fifth with 33
points as VPI gave the Indians
a surprisingly tough battle for
first with 69 points.

W&M's strength proved to
be in the distance events,
which they dominated, taking
1-2-3 in the six mile and first in
the 880, mile, three mile and
steeplechase.

Virginia's big scorer was
"dancing" Keith Witherspoon.
Keith won the triple jump with
a new state record of 48-6, but
before every jump he took a
cassette player to the end of
the runway and danced to the
music while preparing to leap.
He also placed third in the long
jump with a distance of 22-3.
Richmond's Norm Williams
won the event with a 22-10
effort.

Kent Merritt was also a
winner, racing to a time of 9.6
in the 100 yard dash, a time
good enough to tie for the
state record. Unfortunately, he
pulled up short at the finish
and Coach Lou Onesty decided
to keep him out of the 220, an
event that he was favored to
win, since he is tight from
spring football and could have
pulled a muscle.

Mr. Onesty said that "the
meet had its good points and
its bad points" for the Cavaliers,
but that they didn't have
enough depth in the field
events. He was especially
pleased with the performances
of Mayo Tabb, Mike DeCamps
and Phil Meyer.

Tabb placed fourth in the
steeplechase but set the school
record in doing so. Meyer ran
an outstanding race to place
second in the three mile with a
time of 14:1-2.1, his best of the
year. W&M's Steve Snyder won
the event in 14:07.1.

In an amazing display of
endurance, Mike DeCamps
made up an eight yard lead at
the end to nip W&M's Al
Sharrett for second place in the
880 with a time of 1:54.2.
Despite Mike's great finish, he
was unable to catch another
Indian runner, Reginald Clark,
who set a track record of
1:52.5.

Other scorers for the
Cavaliers included Jim
McClurg, whose 13-6 vault was
good enough to take second in
the pole vault and Dave
Peyton, who ran a
disappointing fifth in the 440
yard hurdles with a time of
55.2. Richmond's versatile Carl
Wood ran a state record 52.4 in
winning this event.

VPI was not expected to do
as well as they did, but came
within four points of
dethroning W&M. A major
block of Tech's points came in
the weight events as Scott
Alexander and Barry White
placed 1-2 in the shot put and
discus. Alexander, the state
record-holder in that event,
won the shot with a toss of
54-1½. In the discus the two
traded places as White took
first, slinging the discus 155-3.

Other winning Gobblers
were Dave Bolin, who tied the
track record of 14.5 in the 120
yard high hurdles, and Mack
Bankis in the 440 (47.5) and
Ed Nuttycombe in the pole
vault (14-6)

In light of the final score,
the mile run was probably the
event that decided the winner
of the meet. William & Mary's
Bill Louv used his greater
strength to outdistance Tech's
Steve Smith en route to a
winning time of 4:15.3. If
Smith could have improved his
time of 4:15.9 by only seven
tenths of a second, Tech would
have won the meet.

Another big event for W&M
was the javelin with Bob Daniel
(200 feet) and Dave Ruch (191
feet) placing 1-2. Fred Toepke
was also a winner as he won
the high jump, leaping 6-6¼ in
the process.

In the final standings W&M
had 73 points, VPI 69, Virginia
State, while not winning any
events, placed third by virtue
of their 42 points. Richmond
was a close fourth with 41
points, followed by Virginia's
33, Virginia Union's 18 and
eight other teams scoring less
than 10 points each.

After travelling to the Penn
Relays on April 29, the
Cavaliers will host the ACC
Championships at Lannigan
Field May 12 and 13.