Penn to Challenge Racketmen Saturday

The remnants of a squash team which came within a few points of upsetting Harvard last year will try again Saturday at 2 p.m. in Hemenway Gymnasium.

Penn, with two exceptional seniors and dim prospects for next year, will be putting all its chips in Saturday's contest, which will undoubtedly be one of the two best matches at Harvard this year.

The Quakers will come to Harvard with an unblemished record, though a developing Yale team gave them quite a scare earlier in the season at New Haven. In the crucial number three match, with the score 4-4, Penn's Ed Serues rallied from five match points to defeat Yale's Jay Wescott.

One-Two Combo

Winner of four of the top six matches in last year's 5-4 loss to Harvard, Penn is not hurting up front this year, either. Howard Coonley and Maurice Heckscher, the polished one and two players at Penn, comprise the best combination in intercollegiate squash -- unless Harvard captain Dinny Adams and sophomore Jose Gonzalez can prove otherwise.

The Quakers have strong juniors in the third and fourth spots. Serues, the son of Amherst's squash coach, and Clay Hamlin, a converted tennis player, are quick, hard-hitting competitors, though not of the same calibre as Harvard's Rick Sterne or Todd Wilkinson. Neither Wilkinson nor Sterne has ever lost a varsity match.

Below number four, Penn has problems. The Quakers, always plagued with a lack of depth, graduated a batch of seniors last year and couldn't win a single match against the Crimson freshman.

Steve Simpson and Craig Stapleton, winners for Harvard at Penn last year, have recovered from injuries and are at full strength.

At the bottom of the ladder, Harvard's Peter Brooks, Matt Hall, and Gordon Black are definite favorites, especially with the home court advantage.

Despite its lack of depth, Penn won't be a pushover, as its 5-4 victory at Yale testifies. With the likes of Coonley and Heckscher at the top, a couple of upsets down below could make the match as tense as last year's.

Harvard now stands with a 5-0 record for the season and with a victory streak of 45 straight. The Crimson freshmen, after narrowly edging Andover, 4-3, are also undefeated.