Squash Players Shine at Invite

The Harvard men's squash team began its perennial domination of the sport at the lan Paine National Wide-court touranment held this weekend at Dartmouth.

The Crimson took the top three spots in the 32-man draw.

In the championship match, junior co-captain Tal Ben-Shacher defeated freshman teammate Dan Ezra.

Ben-Shacher and Ezra were seeded first and second in the tournament, respectively.

Ben-Shacher was named to the All-American team last year after going 7-0 at the third singles position for the Crimson.

Freshman Rishaad Bilimoria, third on the Crimson depth chart, lost in the semifinals to Ezra and finished in third place overall, winning his consolation match by forfeit.

The final Crimson representative, freshman Jeffrey Blumberg, advanced into the quarterfinals before bowing out against Bilimoria.

The competition featured the top players from schools across the nation, including, most notably, Princeton, Yale, and Rochester.

Still, the Crimson players were undefeated against outside competition, losing only to other Crimson players.

"We all respect each other a lot," Ezra said. "We all try to learn from each other, and we're always looking out for each other."

"The assistant coaches that came with us, Roy [McNamara] and Mimi Ells, were a great help through the whole tournament," Bilimoria said.

The results bode well for the Crimson, who won the national championship last year with a 5-4 victory against Yale.

With Yale graduating four of its five top players from last year, this years stiffest competition should come from Princeton and Western Ontario, who was not represented this weekend.

"I think the key to being successful is to achieve the same cohesiveness we had last year," Ben-Shacher said.

"We have a pretty strong team," Ezra said. "The coaches say we're not as deep as we'd like to be, but I'm pretty confident."

Although the Crimson lost its top two starters from last season--Adrian Ezra and Jon Karlen--the line-up will be bolstered by an influx of international talent in the freshmen ranks.

The three freshmen who represented the Crimson this weekend all hail from outside the states.

Ezra comes to Cambridge from London, where he moved after living in Bombay for 14 years. Bilimoria, hails from Bombay and was a childhood friend and squash partner of Ezra's. Blumberg hails from Victoria, British Columbia.

Ezra and Bilimoria, by virtue of their play in international competition, were seeded at the weekend tournament without having played a collegiate match.

The freshmen threesome, combined with the experienced returning starters from last year's championship squad, should once again make the Crimson the top gun in intercollegiate squash.

The Crimson scrimmage against Yale this weekend before beginning its team season in earnest at the Ivy-League Round Robin tournament November 11-13.