Squash Team, Niederhoffer Win Titles

Vic Niederhoffer capped the most amazing four-year career in the history of college squash by winning the National Intercollegiate Squash Tournament in Dartmouth yesterday.

The Crimson captain, who also led Harvard to the team title, announced later that he would retire from squash after playing in the finals of Harvard's Foster Cup tournament at Hemenway Gym Friday.

If there was any doubt of Niederhoffer's complete supremacy among college players, the senior dispelled it by winning his semifinal and final matches yesterday in three games apiece.

Poor Tom

He downed Princeton's Frank Satterthwaite, seventh-seeded in the tournament and the Tigers' number two man, 15-12, 15-14, 15-10 in his semifinal match, and went on to shut out Amherst's second-seeded Tom Poor in the final, 15-14, 15-10, 18-15. It was the second time this year that Niederhoffer had defeated Poor in three games.

Poor made the finals by defeating Romer Holleran, Harvard's number two player, in a five-game semifinal match; the last game went into extra points before the Amherst junior won, 18-14.

The Crimson team accumulated a total of 17 points, to 12 for second-place Princeton and Army. The chief point-getters on the four-man squad were Niederhoffer, Holleran, and John Vinton, who went to the quarterfinals before bowing to Satterthwaite in five games. An erroneous report from Dartmouth Friday had stated that Vinton lost his second-round match.

Both Niederhoffer and Holleran downed some top-notch oposition on their way to the semifinals. Holleran ousted Trinity's eight-seeded Steve McKeever and later beat Army's Steve Darrah, who had beated third-seeded Pete Svastich of Princeton.

Coach Jack Barnaby, who had predicted before the tournament that his team's success would depend on Holleran's play, was pleased with his number two man. "He's on the verge of being a great player," he said after the match.

Niederhoffer, who had dropped two games to Dartmouth's Whit Foster on Friday, played easily in beating Princeton's Toby Symington and John West, Yale's top player, in matches Saturday; he won both contests by 3-1 scores.

In the final, Poor took a 14-13 lead before Niederhoffer tied the game; the Amherst star called for a sudden death playoff but regretted it quickly when Niederhoffer's perfectly hit hard serve bounced into a corner and rolled out on the floor.