Racquetmen Host Middies; Battle of the Undefeateds?

The Naval Academy has never really been known for making things easy on its midshipmen.

Last September, after the majority of the first-classmen had purchased new cars to celebrate the privilege that allows them to drive on campus during their fiual year, the authorities created a new restriction. Operating an automobile on Academy grounds would be cause for immediate dismissal.

So it was probably not very surprising to the Navy squash team that tomorrow, they are playing at Harvard in the afternoon, and at Amherst at night.

It is hard to estimate with any great degree of accuracy the quality of the Middies' squad this winter. They have rumbled undefeated through five matches, shutting out Wesleyan. Trinity and M. I. T., and edging a fairly strong Williams squad, 5-1, less than four hours after the Wesleyan triumph.

But Navy's early opponents have not been strong teams, and the Academy has never been faced with the awesome task that confronts it at Hemenway Gmynasium at 1 p. m. this afternoon.

For Harvard, too, is undefeated, having blanked Cornell and Amherst and ripped a tough Army squad at West Point, 8-1, losing only seven games in the process.

Where Navy has shut out, Harvard has demolished, and only the most optimistic midshipman would be hoping for an upset this afternoon.

Last year, before a screaming horde at Annapolis, the Crimson destroyed its hosts. 8-1, and the same result is not impossible this afternoon. The discrepancy in talent is that great.

Both squads are coming off a four-week respite from collegiate competition, but the Crimson sent captain Larry Terrell, Jaime Gonzales, Paul Brown, John Ince, Alan Quasha, and Reggie Foster to the University Club tournament in New York over Christmas break, which Terrell won easily.

Gonzales. Quasha, and Ince all lost in the quarterfinals, but were faced by players that rank proportionately higher on the Penn and Princeton varsities. Navy did not enter, and could be a little more state-competitively because of it.

Tomorrow's doubleheader is the last on Navy's schedule this winter, and it is quite possible that the result of the afternoon match may persuade the Academy authorities that it is not such a terrific idea after all.

"It's not that bad," one third-classman said yesterday. "We'll beat Amherst, anyway."

The Middies, one assumes, are accustomed to qualified unhappiness.