Racquetmen Coast Past MIT; Engineers Learn a Little Math

Numbers are supposed to tell the story at MIT, and indeed they did last night as Harvard's squash team gave the Engineers a math lesson in lopsided scores.

For the record, the total point score was 405-128, the game score 27-0, and the match total 9-0. You don't need a calculator to figure out that the match was pretty much over after the first service.

"The match is kind of a neighborly thing," coach Dave Fish said last night.

Coming off two tough matches against Princeton and Penn, though, the Crimson was anything but loving toward their hapless neighbors. Except for Scott Mead's 17-15 third-game squeaker, none of the games was close.

The numerical assault began at number one, where Captain Bill Kaplan substituted for the slightly injured Mike Desaulniers and made his opponent look like a disfigured hypotenuse, 15-0, 15-5, 15-9.

Fish's squad continued its vicious math lesson right down the line. John Havens at number two, Mark Panarese at three, Ned Bacon at four, and Ken Ehrlich at five, downed their opponents by an average point score of 45 to 21.75 (if my roommate Bill's Texas Instruments calculator is to be trusted).

Mead, seven-man George Bell, number eight John Stubbs, and George Colony at nine finished up the team whitewash. John Fishwick finished off the Engineers with an easy 3-0 win at number ten which did not count in the team scoring.

The next numbers the racquetmen have to worry about should be a little less lopsided. The Crimson will head to Chicago this weekend to participate in the national championships. The play there will see a healthy Desaulniers in the singles, and a five-man squad in the team competition.

The challenge should be greater than last night's arithmetic.