By Don MacAuley

An Irishman from Providence College won the 64th annual NE Inter-Collegiate cross country championship at Franklin Park yesterday and broke the course record in the progress.
Nothing surprising about that until uou learn that the Irishman was not Mick O’Shea, the lad who had won this event the past three years and was gunning to become the first man since Bob Black of the University of Rhode Island back in WWII days to sweep four consecutive titles.

John Treacy, who had played second fiddle to O’Shea the past couple of years, decided he’d like a taste of the glory that goes with winning, so he took off at the two mile mark, leaving O’Shea and the rest of the pack in his wake en route to a record shattering 23:06 performance that also sparked Providence to the team title over Umass and Northeastern.

O’Shea faded to fourth yesterday behind runner-up Mike Quinn of Umass, and Northeasterns John Flora. But it wasn’t that O’Shea had a bad day, because he turned in his best time ever (23:26). Mick had run 23:34 in winning last year, and held the course record of 23:31 set while winning the 1974 title.

That record stood until two weeks ago when Bob Hodge of the University of Lowell obliterated it with a 23:18 clocking, and it was the same Hodge who set up yesterday’s record run by blazing an opening 4:21 mile that set the stage for Treacy, before fading to fifth himself.

The Friars bunched five finishers among the top sixteen. Northeastern had three runners in the top ten but lack of depth hurt the Huskies.

Franklin Park 5 Miles

Bob out in front at 1976 New England X-C Championship.