The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-05-27
California Athletes Lead m Track
 Meet

Cambridge, Mass, May 25.-Sun- browned athletes from the Pacific coast gained formidable lead in tho preliminaries of the intercoile giate championship games today when the University of California team, wln- ners of the 1921 meet. qualified Is, stars for the semi finals and finals tomorrow. Their greatest rivals. the Stanford university combinations, fin- ished in fourth place with ten sur vivors, the two far western instltu- tions thus accounting for 25 of the 105 places left after the weed!ng out process.
 Sandwiched in between California and Stanford were Cornell many times winner of the intercollegiate championship, and Princeton, selected by many experts as a probable victor this year. The Ithaca athletes. under the coaching of Jack Moakley, finish ed second in the days preliminartes. with IS qualificrs, and Princeton was third with Il. Following Stanford came Pennsylvania, Harvard, Yale and Penn State, in the order named, with eight. seven, six and six survivors. respectively. A dozen other colleges also qualified representa&sves.
 Merchant stars
 The outstanding star of the after noon's athletic competition was J. w. Merchant a senior at California and 8 member of the American Olympic team of two years ago. The Cal- fornia Hercules not only established a new Intercollegiate record Of III feet inches in the 16-pound hammer throw to lead the field of qualifiers, but also fought his way into the finals of three other events. These were the shot put, javelin throw. and run ming broad jump.
 Merchants hammer throw broke the former record made by II. r. Bailey of the University of Maine, who did i65 feet il inches at the intercol- legiate games in Philadelphia in 1915.
 One record was equaled when j.. A. Leconey of Lafayette easily won his heat in the 100yard sprint in S-l0 seconds, thus placing himself in the select 4-5 second class con sistins of Wefers, Craig and Paterson.
 In outdistancing the rest of the field in the number of qualifiers, Cali fornia showed a we'll balanced team and is conceded an excellent chance to repeat her victory of 12 months ago in Saturdays finals.
 Stanford was somewhat of a dis appointment to her supporters, but the Palo Alto combination ran into some hard luck and lost places in several events in which they were thought sure to advance.
 Cornell in Running
 Cornell showed strongest among the eastern contenders and was consider ed still in the running in view of the two distance runs on tomorrow's pro- gram in which 1t is expected the 1thicaans will accumulate & comfort able number of points.
 Weather and track conditions were favorable for record breaking. but the contestants appeared to be hold ing much in reserve for the nerve racking battle tomorrow and only cut loose when absolutely necessary. Under similar conditions tomorrow several new records are probable. for every event will be fought to a fin ish in the struggle for previous points.
 Qualifying colleges with number of entrants for finals Saturday are:
 California, 15: Cornell, Is; Prince ton, Il; Stanford, 10; University of Pennsylvania. s; Harvard, '; Yale, 6; Penn State, G. Dartmouth, 5; Colgate Columbia, Georgetown, Syracuse. each; Boston. Lafayette, Rutgers, Williams, , each; Amherst, Dowdoin. Brown and New York university, each.