M. Squash Rules NCAA

Last year, after the Harvard women's squash team had defeated Yale for the national championship, Libby Eynon '95 declared, "We opened up a can of whoop ass tonight."

This past weekend, the juggernaut that is the current Harvard men's squash team brought along a six-pack.

The team proved itself a dynasty of the first caliber by sweeping to its sixth consecutive national championship, with a perfect win at the NISRA Team Tournament held at Yale.

No Harvard player lost a single match as the top-seeded Crimson (14-0, 6-0 Ivy) breezed past Yale, Pennsylvania and Amherst, winning all three matches by a score of 9-0.

Going into this year's tournament, no team had ever won every game in every match on the road to the championship.

It seems that records are meant to be broken.

Then again, the performance should come as no surprise to those who have followed the Crimson this year. Harvard had already steam-rolled over those three opponents during the regular season.

"Winning the championship was definitely a thrill," junior Jake Hollinger said. "It was really great to go in there and prove that all of the hard work was worth it."

The outcome was typical for Harvard, whose phenomenal team history includes an overall Ivy League record of 176-15, 30 Ivy League championships in 40 years and 28 national championships. Whoop ass, anyone?

Under current head coach Bill Doyle, Harvard has won all of its dual matches but one, and the current championship streak has been spearheaded by 21 All-Americans over the six-year run.

"It was just like a regular tournament," senior Mike Oh said of this past weekend. "We just beat everybody."

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the tournament came in the semifinals, when second-seeded Princeton--usually Harvard's strongest competitor--fell to Amherst.

But for the Crimson, the outcome was the same: victory followed by victory followed by victory...

"Overall, we were very pleased with the result," top-seeded sophomore Joel Kirsch said of the win. "I think everybody performed really well. The tournament--the whole season--was just really fun."