Racquetmen Come Back to Edge Penn

One match away from losing a 40-game winning streak and the Ivy League championship, the Harvard racquetmen played no-holds-barred squash Saturday to edge their previously unbeaten rival Penn, 5-4.

In what coach Jack Barnaby yesterday called "one of the most dramatic matches ever played in the Ivy League," the Crimson virtually guaranteed themselves the top spot among the nation's squash teams. The team has one match remaining against a weak Yale squad here on Tuesday.

Down 4-1 after the first round of matches and playing in Philadelphia before a pro-Quaker gallery, the Crimson's even-numbered players won four and five-game matches to turn around what looked like almost certain defeat.

Harvard's comeback started rolling when Andy Wiegand captured a long, difficult match against Penn's number two player, 3-2, with a crushing performance in the final game.

Mature Match

Number four player Niel Vosters played what Barnaby called his "most mature match of the season" to down Penn's quick Denish Nayak, 3-1, while number eight Archie Gwoghmey used a strong attack to win, 3-1.

During the most tense moment of Harvard's victory, the number six match, Harvard's Peter Blasier dropped behind Quaker Sandy Groff, 2-1. But after a sideline conference with Barnaby, Blasier battled back aggressively to secure the Crimson's 41st consecutive win.

The Harvard-Penn contest opened with five matches between the odd-numbered players from each team. Only Crimson captain and national champion Peter Briggs captured his match, handing the Quaker's top man Joe Swain his first loss of the season, 3-1.

Ailing Briggs

Briggs, who pulled a groin muscle a week earlier against Princeton, overcame additional trouble with his stomach to play Saturday.

The other Crimson racquetmen weren't as successful as Briggs. Playing number three, Glen Whitman went the distance only to be edged by Penn's Chris Sadowski, 3-2. Rob Sedgwick lost three close games and his match to the Quakers' number five man Tom Peck.

Dramatic Comeback

The stage was set for Harvard's dramatic comeback when numbers seven and nine, Dick Cashin and Fred Fischer, dropped their matches, giving Penn a 4-1 advantage.

Barnaby said that the comeback was "as difficult as a goal line stand is in football, but it lasted an hour." The game was Harvard's first difficult contest of the season. They had surrendered only three points in matches before Saturday.