Raquetmen Advance To Semis of Tourney

It was a trip of Rocky Mountain highs and lows for the Harvard men's squash team.

The Crimson sent seven players to Denver this weekend to compete in the United States Squash and Racquet Association (USSRA) tournament and five of them made it to the quarter-finals.

But both senior Jeremy Fraiberg and sophomore Adrien Ezra, the two Crimson players who played in the semi-finals on Sunday, couldn't get past their Team Mexico opponents.

In the round of four, Fraiberg lost a very close five-game match to Octavio Montero that he said he should have won.

"I was playing well all the way up to the semis," Fraiberg said. "After that I started to get erratic."

Fraiberg, Harvard's number-one player, led in the first game of the match 14-8, but was unable to win the one point he needed. He ended up losing nine straight points and the game, 17-14.

"It's really hard to lose a game after you're up that much," Fraiberg said.

The Crimson senior rallied back to win the second and fourth games 15-10 and 15-11. But in the deciding battle, the mountain altitude and fatigue caught up with Fraiberg as he dropped the game 15-4.

Ezra lost his semi-final match in three straight games to Hector Barrigan, the number one seed for the tournament and the eventual champion.

"I didn't play badly," Ezra said. "But he was the better player. The ball was moving so fast, shooting all over the place, and he just overpowered me."

One reason that more Harvard players did not go farther is that the USSRA individuals tourney squared Crimson players against each other.

Fraiberg and Ezra, the number three and four seeds in the tournament, had to defeat teammates Marty Clark and Johnny Kaye in the quarter-finals to get to the round of four.

Clark, Harvard's number-six player, lost in three straight games to Fraiberg. Co-Captain Kaye battled Ezra in a tough, five-game match, eventually losing 3-2.

The Harvard racquet wizards started the tournament in perfect form with all seven players winning their first-round matches on Friday.

Saturday brought with it the round of 16 as well as two hard losses for the Crimson.

Co-Captain George Polsky lost 3-2 to Yale's number-two player and sophomore Jon Karlen dropped his match to Montero, the number two seed in the tournament.

In the quarter-finals, five of the eight remaining players were from Harvard, but in addition to Clark and Kaye, senior Farokh Pandole lost his match.

Montero made Pandole the second of his three Crimson victims by defeating Harvard's number-four player, 3-1. Despite the Mexican victories in the quarters, semis and finals, many players found the trip enjoyable and good training for the upcoming National Championship match at Yale.

"It's good to play a tournament as close as possible to a big match like this," Clark said. "Everyone's, really excited for Wednesday's match."