Racquetmen Edge Trinity, 5-4

The longest wining streak in Harvard's history is still going strong.

Harvard men's squash team opened its season with a tough 5-4 victory over Trinity to up its winning streak to 59 straight games.

One yearand 10 wins ago Harvard blasted Trinity in a quick 9-0 victory. It was a different story this year. Trinity knew that Harvard had captured its fifth straight Ivy League title last season. Maybe it even heard that the racquetmen celebrated Thanksgiving by feasting on teams across the Atlantic. Who knows? If it did, it didn't psyche Trinity out. It came after Harvard in full force.

The Crimson's second, third, fourth and fifth players fell to their Trinity opponents. Playing second for Harvard, Jim Masland, lost in three straight sets to Chris Smith. James Gilfillan, playing third, and John Masland, playing fifth, both lost their matches in 2-3 decisions. Harvard's fourth George Polsky, only managed to capture one set against his opponent.

"We were awful," Harvard Coach David Fish said. "The way we were playing we were lucky to get out of there with a win."

The Crimson started off strong with wins in their first three matches. Trinity then came back and rallied for two victories of their own. Harvard and Trinity each took one of the next two games and Mike Foster defeated his opponent to clinch the victory for Harvard.

"It was a tough match, Trinity was a good team and we would have expected to beat them," Doug Cohen said.

Fish who was forced to leave five of his players in Cambridge because of injuries said, "Given that kind of approach when other guys are injured and that kind of intensity-we'll get killed this year. I was not pleased."

"We went into the game thinking we were a better team, we were, but not by the margin we thought," Foster said. "We were a little taken back, but this will prevent it from happening again."

Navy Blue

Tomorrow the Crimson faces Navy on its home courts at the Hemenway way gym in a match up that should be exciting.

"Navy will be tough, we will use the Trinity match to be better prepared," Foster said.

"It'll be a real serious match tomorrow, Fish said. "We'll have to play a lot better to beat Navy."

Not Surprsied

"We weren't particular surprised by the outcome," Trinity's John Polsten said. "They didn't bring their best players. It's disappointing that we couldn't play them at their full strength."

THE NOTEBOOK: During Harvard's current streak, the Crimson has won 496 individual matches, while surrendering 36...Harvard now leads the series, 14-0...The racquetmen captured their fisrt meeting between the schools, 5-1, on February 7, 1947...Harvard has captured 112 individual matches against Trinity, while dropping 11...Harvard has also recorded nine shutouts against Trinity...The racquetmen extended their non-Ivy winning streak to 61 games and their road-game winning streak to 29.