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The Unsung Hero of Heptagonals

Ullyot's House

You only need to remember one name from last weekend's Indoor Heptagonal Games, and you can forget about all the big names.

Forget about Harvard's Cliff Sheehan, who won the 1500 meters in 3:44.62 (a new meet record) and kicked the Crimson to victory in the distance medley relay.

Forget about Todd Presley, the Cornell 400 man who won that event in 48.43 seconds and was the gutsy anchorman of the winning 4x400 relay squad.

Forget about Army's Pamela Pearson, named the meet's Outstanding Female Athlete for her wins in the long jumps and triple jump and third place finish in the 200 meters.

Forget, even, about Navy's Mike Greene, who ran a 46.9 second 400 meters anchoring the Midshipmen's mile relay squad, and came within a half-second of the American record in the 500 meters. He was only named Outstanding Male Athlete.

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No, if you're looking for hero of last weekend's Heps, the name to remember is Charles Forlidas.

Forlidas. Sound familiar? It shouldn't.

Forlidas is a freshman at Princeton. He didn't have a great weekend at Heps, finishing in a four-way tie for fourth place in Saturday's high jumps competition.

But if track kept a meet-winning-point stat, Forlidas would have received it for his Heps effort. He quietly gave the Tigers the three-fourths of a point they needed to sneak away with the Heps and Ivy indoor titles.

Saturday night, everyone considered Harvard Co-Captain Doug Boyd the hero of the high jumps, as he had won the competition with his first seven-ft. jump of the indoor season.

But as the meet resumed on Sunday, it became clear that the Crimson wasn't going to finish among the team leaders. So Boyd's jump--while it remained a fantastic individual performance--became irrelevant in determining the eventual team winner.

Cornell was among the leaders, though, so the dynamic Big Red duo of Steve Kuntz and Tim Trible took over the hero-of-the-high-jump spot. Kuntz and Trible had finished two-three in the competition, earning 14 points for Cornell.

"The key in Heps is to have depth in the finals," Harvard women's Co-Captain Yamilee Bermingham said after the meet. Kuntz and Trible had provided Cornell with that depth, and the Redmen seemed to have the key that would let them into the winner's circle.

And people had forgotten about the rest of the high jump field. There was Boyd's winning individual effort, and the Cornell duo's key team effort, and....

Something like four guys tied for fourth. Chris Sullivan and Rob Gustafson of Harvard, Scott Strine of Army and Forlidas of Princeton had all successfully jumped 1.98 meters and missed at 2.05 meters.

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