Squash Team Faces Yale In Championship Match

Harvard's varsity squash team, redeem- by Penn's and Yale's conquests of princeton, travels to New Haven Saturday battle the Elis for the national inter-collegiate team championship.

He has dropped one match, a 5-4 loss to Penn, while Harvard has lost to Princeton, 5-4. Princeton and Penn, of whom have dropped two matches, out of the race.

Its been five years since Yale intruded the Harvard string of national championships. Six of the last seven national belong to the Crimson, with the tenth going to Yale in 1961.

Yale Beat Princeton

Against Princeton last Saturday, Yale the number one match and then the next four matches. The Elis are probably hoping for victories in the same competitions against Harvard, but they are going to have a difficult time sweeping the bottom four if Crimson juniors Craig Stapleton (six) and undefeated Matt Hall (seven) continue their solid pressure play.

The bottom two matches. Harvard sophomore Gordon Black plays Jim Brown and Peter Brooks faces Yale's ambidextrous E.K. Carmody, the fellow who had rather hit with the left than hit with a backhand. Brooks, along with Captain Dinny Adams, will be completing his third year as a varsity letterman.

Steve Simpson, Harvard's rugged fifth man, also winds up his varsity career Saturday against Eli sophomore Chris Gadsen. Gadsen, the number two man on Yale's freshman team last year, has developed rapidly this year and should give the more experienced Simpson a tough battle.

Top Four Are Seniors

Yale's top four players are all seniors, but it is here up front where Harvard must win decisively, by at least a 3-1 margin.

The number one match should be the tightest, and a real doozie besides. Adams will shovel his repertoire of shots against the slam game of Yale captain John West. Against Princeton's Burt Gay last Saturday. West won a 3-0 victory with frightening case. Maybe West will remember back to his freshman year, after winning the national junior championship, when Adams blasted him by a 3-0 score.

Harvard rates as the favorite in each of the next three matches. Jose Gonzalez (two) may be harassed somewhat by Yale's persistent Jay Westcott, but if the Crimson sophomore plays up to his usual level, he should control the match.

As Rick Sterne has demonstrated all season, Harvard's most certain victory comes in the number three slot. The Crimson sophomore, undefeated and hardly challenged this year, faces Yale's Roy Durham.

Harvard looks a little stronger in the top positions and about as well-balanced overall. But as Princeton demonstrated two weeks ago, it takes only a couple of reversals in the "sure" matches to change a 6-3 victory into a 5-4 loss.