Racquetmen Top Trinity, Escape With a 6-3 Win

It was definitely a little closer than the Crimson would have liked.

The Harvard men's squash team triumphed at Trinity College yesterday, 6-3, in a match Coach Dave Fish said the visitors "were lucky to escape from."

Though it was only Harvard's second match of the season, Trinity proved to be as tough a foe as the defending national champs will probably face all year. "They're a good team. We've never had this tough a match this early in the season," said Fish.

The match was closer than the 6-3 score indicates. Crimson Co-Captain Jim Lubowitz had to come from two games down to win his match, 3-2. "Jim made a tremendous comeback against one of the top college players in the country. He played the best match of the day," said Fish.

Dave Boyum, Harvard's number-one player, showed his sharpness, lacking last week against Navy, in polishing off Trinity's Bill Doyle in three games. Co-Captain Spencer Brog and junior Pete Dineen also won in straight games, while Dave Segal and Mike Mack were victorious in four games each.

The Crimson's second-seeded player, Richard Jackson, who missed the Navy match when he chipped his tooth in practice, found the going against Trinity's Mike Georgey much tougher. Jackson lost to the Trinity All-American in three straight games. "Richard lost to a good player who had more shots than he did," commented Fish.

Inexperience at the eighth and ninth positions led to losses for the Crimson, as Tao Johnson succumbed in four games and last week's hero at Navy, freshman Joe Dowling, playing for the first time in a close match, was vanquished in three games. "Joe was in about the same position as the Patriots' quarterback Tony Eason two weeks ago, he had never really played in that situation before, and he was nervous," said Fish.

"There is lots of room for improvement," Fish added. "We are stroking well, but we have to understand more about the strategy in shots. This was really our first time under pressure."

The racquetmen meet MIT at Hemenway Gym on Tuesday afternoon, but the team has relatively smooth sailing until it meets up with Princeton on February 25. Since upcoming matches should pose little challenge, the players will be entering individual outside tournaments to sharpen up their games.