Squash Team Overwhelms Penn in 6-3 Win

(Special to the CRIMSON)

In a remarkable show of depth and spirit, Harvard captured the Big Three track crown at Princeton Saturday. Harvard scored 65 points to Princeton's 50 and Yale's 24.

Senior John Enscoe scored signal victories in the mile and 1000-yard run while Dave Elliott, coming off a foot injury, won the 600-yard run and ran anchor on the winning two-mile relay.

Good Time

The opening event, the mile, was a harbinger of things to come. Enscoe and Tom Spengler ran ahead for the bulk of the race and finished together. Both, were clocked at 4:11.0, but the judges gave the victory to Enscoe.

In the 600 which followed immediately after. Harvard again demonstrated the strength it showed throughout the meet. Harvard's Rick Melvoin took the lead in the race with about 300 yards to go. He held it until the last straightaway when Elliott passed him. With a time of 1:13,4, he nipped Melvoin by 0.2 seconds.

Good Timing

Tom Spengler won the two-mile at a very strategic point in the meet. The two-mile was the last event before the relays and it came when Harvard was ahead, 47-46. Princeton's Paul Good led in the race until the last lap when Spengler and Jeff Brokaw, who had stayed close for the entire race, drove past him, with Spengler in the lead. They stretched out their lead and took the first two spots. Spengler's winning time was 9:02.6, Harvard's Mike Koerner nipped Princeton's Tom O'Brien for fourth place.

This win gave Harvard an eight-point lead going into the relays. In the first of these, Yale's Don Martin anchored his squad to victory with a leg of 47.3. The Harvard squad, anchored by Walter Johnson, took second place, clinching the meet.

For good measure, the Harvard team of John Quirk, Enseoe. Bob Clayton and Elliott took the two-mile relay.

In the shot put, Harvard's Joe Naughton set a facility and meet record throw of 56'3/4".

"Everybody pulled together and did the job," said one team member. "It was magnificent with everybody yelling and cheering and doing everything they could. It was a beautiful thing to see."

PHILADELPHIA, Feb, 20-In what was expected to be a close battle, Harvard's varsity squash team won five of the bottom six matches, added an upset at number two, and crushed a strong Penn squad, 6-3, on the Rindge Courts today.

The Crimson needs only a victory over underdog Yale next Saturday to win its fourth consecutive national intercollegiate title.

Coach Jack Barnaby praised the entire team for the victory. "Never have I had a team that worked harder and deserved a victory more," he said. "Usually there are one or two guys you wish you could get to give more, but this team reached its potential at every position."

Today's margin of victory was never expected. "A 6-3 victory on anyone's home court is a trouncing," Harvard captain Ed Atwood said. The loss was the first Quaker defeat at Rindge in five years.

Harvard was ahead throughout the match, and at one point the game score was an embarrassing 6-1, No match went five games, and except at number four, where Jaime Gonzalez edged Anil Kapur in four close games, each match was won decisively. Four Crimson players swept their matches in three games.

Dan Gordon put the Crimson ahead quickly with a three-game victory at number six, but the crucial point in the match came moments later. Neil Vosters was trailing at eight, Alan Quasha was behind in his first game at five, Kapur was leading in the fourth game against Gonzalez, and Dave Fish was a clear underdog in his match at number two with Eliot Berry.

But within five minutes, Gonzalez and Fish had both won, and Quasha was up two games for a commanding 4-1 match lead.

The match at number one between Palmer Page and Peter Briggs was marred by continuous arguments over let calls. Tempers reached their peak when, at 4-4 of a five-point set of the second game, Page in returning a shot hit Briggs square in the mouth with his racquet.