Racquetmen Squash Amherst

Before yesterday afternoon's season-opening match against Amherst, the Crimson racquetmen had a brief conference and decided that the player who allowed his Lord Jeff opponent the fewest points would win a pitcher of beer at Father's Six from each of the other eight players.

It's not that the squad was over-confident or anything, just realistic. There was no question, you see, that Harvard would win the match; it was just a matter of by how much in how long.

Com bien?

As it turned out, the "how much" was very much--try 9-0 with the Crimson winning 27 of the 28 games played--and the "how long" was very short--if you blinked twice you would have missed the contest. The only battle, it turned out, was for the beer.

First came the even-numbered matches (for those of you who didn't go to prep school a squash match is divided into two halves, with even-ranked players opening the show), in which Captain Bill Kaplan, Mark Panarese, Ken Ehrlich and Bob Blake showed Amherst the true meaning of the word rout.

Each triumphed in the minimum three games, with Panarese emerging as the early leader in the beerstakes. The Crimson's fourth-ranked performer allowed only 10 points in a 15-2, 15-4, 15-4 devastation, edging Kaplan and Ehrlich by three and five points, respectively.

Nolo

Blake's victory, a 15-4, 15-10, 15-9 affair, would have been no contest any other day, but by yesterday's standards it was pretty close.

Blessed with a 4-0 lead when they took the court, the odds (as in ranking, not character) knew they would be playing more for frosties than for practice, which probably explains why they tried so hard.

Or at least most of them tried hard. For freshman and number one man Mike Desaulniers, it's not that he wasn't trying, but rather than an opponent who shouldn't have really been in the same building as Desaulniers in the first place just didn't get him too psyched.

Sure, Desaulniers won in three sets, but he allowed 21 points when two would have been a lot. When you're one of the ten best squash players in the world--and that's the truth--and a good dresser as well--Dasaulniers wore green and red stripes on shirt, pants and socks--you can afford to take it easy. If only out of mercy.

At number nine, Clancy Nixon wasn't about to take it easy in his first varsity match, but his 20-point acquiescence left him nowhere near the beer. Nor was Ned Bacon, who got a little overconfident and lost a game. John Havens came awfully close at number three, but in his 15-5, 15-3, 15-3 fiasco he sacrificed one point too many.

Haven's total was also one point more than Scott Mead allowed. Mead played at number seven and in the upstairs courts. His match began at about 4:15 p.m., and, two beads of sweat and what seemed like five minutes later, it was over. The scored of 15-6, 15-2, 15-2 tied Panarese's pace-setting mark and won Mead a share of seven pitchers of beer, Cheers.