Harvard Netmen Beat Dartmouth, 6-3

The Harvard tennis team traveled to Hanover, N.H. yesterday to defeat Dartmouth 6-3.

The victory ended the tennis season as the squad captured a tie with Columbia for second place in the Ivy League. Senior John Ingard, captain of the team, said after the match. "Princeton was unbeatable this year. It was a race for second and we won that."

The Crimson netmen won four of the five singles matches yesterday, while dropping two of the three doubles to the Big Green. Coach Jack Barnaby said after the match. "We played pretty well considering we drove 140 miles and walked out of the car onto the courts."

Junior Gary Reiner, number one on the Harvard team, said last night "Most of our team had already played them in the New England championships two weeks ago so we were pretty confident we would win."

Reiner had little difficulty with his opponent, taking his match 6-3, 6-3. Barnaby said yesterday, "Reiner wins so easily it's nothing remarkable. He's playing the best he's ever played since he's been at Harvard."

The most dramatic match of the day was Ingard's comeback against the captain of the Dartmouth team, Andy Oldenburg. After taking a 4-0 lead, Ingard dropped the first set in a tiebreaker, 7-6.

Breaking service while down 5-4 in the second set, he managed to tie the score at one set all. The captain of the Crimson squad handily concluded his Harvard tennis career by taking the third set 6-0.

Ingard said after the match, "It was a matter of swinging the momentum back to my favor. After that I just managed to romp in the third set."

The Harvard racquetmen weren't used to the clay courts at Dartmouth, since the poor condition of the home clay courts forces the team to play on their indoor courts. The clay courts require a different strategy since the serve becomes less important and service breaks more frequent.

Ingard said the Dartmouth team fought hard against the Crimson onslaught. "We had to earn all the victories. All the matches were close and they were difficult to predict early who would win," he said.