Netmen Capture Eighth Straight

The Harvard and Yale football teams have battled back and forth for 101 years, but when it comes to men's tennis, there's no contest.

Indeed, when it comes to men's tennis between almost everybody in the Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis Association (EITA) and Harvard, there's no contest.

The netmen (12-3, overall, 5-0 EITA) rolled over Yale Saturday, 8-1, at Soldiers Field courts for their eighth straight victory.

The Harvard juggernaut came within three match points of its third shutout. Peter Palandjian had the three chances to win the second set of his fourth singles match, but was unable to capitalize on any.

Palandjian had won his first set, 6-1, and rallied back from a service break in the second set to lead 6-5 with Eli Shane Reed serving.

But Reed held serve, won the set in the tie-breaker, and went on to win the final and deciding set, 6-4.

Larry Scott was superb at first singles spot. The junior co-captain slammed Scott Staniar 6-0, 6-0 to lead the Crimson onslaught.

Staniar was no slouch--with first singles victories over Penn and Princeton earlier this year--but Scott was too good.

"Larry was really amazing," Harvard Coach Fish said. "He gets into a frame of mind where he hits every ball as well as he can."

Bill Stanley, Dave Beckman, Darryl Laddin, and Arkie Engle also claimed singles victories for the netinen.

The Harvard doubles teams of Scott and Engle and Laddin and Peter Palandjian won straight-set triumphs while Beckman and Paul Palandjian took three sets to down the Bull-dogs.

The Crimson has four matches left--all on the road. The protracted trip will start this weekend at Army and Cornell.

THE NOTEBOOK: The Crimson was ranked 27th in the latest national poll. Fish says that the team "is playing much better now" than earlier in the season when it was 20th, but that "it's difficult once we start playing in the East again" to keep up the ranking.