FACES IN THE CROWD

Leith Lende, 14, of Castleton-on-Hudson, is moving to the top rank of amateur skiers. Last winter she took her class title at the Tri-State Championships, was chosen to race on the New Zealand circuit and has now won that country's Alpine Combined Championships.

Malcom Lomax, a senior fullback who is leading the resurgence of Donora, Pa. Senior High School, is being hailed as the best all-round prep football player in western Pennsylvania. His statistics back it up: in five games he scored 13 TDs, averaged 12 yards a carry.

Burton Bingham, 62, a Minneapolis storekeeper, improves at his specialty with every passing year. In 1964 he became his Minnesota club's shuffle-board champion; this year he took both the open and the closed titles of the Western Nationals in Minneapolis.

Pam Lyster, a 20-year-old college junior from Gait, Calif., led her Sacramento Aquatic Club team to a five-victory sweep of the Women's Senior Outdoor Water Polo Championships in Sacramento. Three times an All-America, she also was named MVP.

Hoppy Hopkins, a national marbles champion at 13 and now a Cleveland recreation director, was chosen MVP of the Women's National A.S.A. Slow Pitch Softball Tournament. Besides playing a stylish shortstop, she hit .633, had eight RBIs and four homers.

Richard Seymour, a 57-year-old Tenafly, N.J. advertising production manager, after years of fishing "all over," landed an 85-pound bull dolphin off Spanish Wells in the Bahamas. The catch is a new world record for All-Tackle and 50-pound-test-line classes.

SIX PHOTOS