Racquetmen End Year on Losing Note

The Crimson racquetmen traveled to Williams College this past weekend to compete in the I.S.R.A. (as in Intercollegiate Squash and Racquet Association) Championships, and although they could only manage a fourthplace finish behind Princeton, Penn, and Western Ontario, they at least had a good time in the process.

Or at least retiring coach Jack Barnaby did. At the Friday night banquet, Barnaby looked on as captain Jeff Wiegand accepted the team trophy which the Crimson had won on the basis of its performance in team matches during the season. "This was our chief objective," Barnaby said, "and we won it."

No Roses

Then Barnaby himself was the recipient of "a beautiful clock," presented to him jointly by the coaches of schools over which his teams have dominated for 44 years. "Everybody loved everybody," Barnaby said in reference to the banquet, but on the courts, everything wasn't nearly as rosy for Harvard.

In fact, the best Crimson performances were turned in by individuals who two weeks ago weren't even planning on spending their weekend in Williams. But then Peter Havens, Cass Sunstein, and Ned Bacon all came down with one thing or another, so Scott Mead and Ken Ehrlich, numbers nine and ten against Princeton a month ago, were called upon to place five and six and represent Harvard in the "C" division this weekend.

Surprise

"They surprised everybody," Barnaby said. "This was a great opportunity for them to prove that they're good squash players, which they did." Mead advanced to the semi-finals of the division, defeating the number one seed along the way, while Ehrlich, who had only participated in two varsity matches during the season, reached the quarter-finals before succumbing.

In the top division, Bill Kaplan also reached the quarters before falling to Princeton's Tom Page, an eventual finalist, while John Havens fell in the third round, his first loss of the season, to Penn's Gil Mateer, last year's intercollegiate champion. Havens was ahead 2-1 in games before losing in five, with Barnaby remarking that Havens has shown "colossal progress for a freshman."

Jeff Wiegand lost in the second round of the "B" division after not practicing for most of the previous week due to his thesis, but then won the consolation round, while Mark Panarese played well before falling in the quarter-finals.

"The whole team played well," Barnaby said yesterday. "We did as well as could've been expected. But watching mighty Princeton win, we just chuckled, because we beat them. The better Princeton did, the better we looked, and the fatter we felt."

So Barnaby concludes his squash career with 20 national championships, 21 Ivy titles, and 10 ISRA victories. When asked how he felt now that he's coached his last squash match, he replied that he feels just as he did a few days ago. "I'm not making a big thing of this," Barnaby stated. "I'm not weeping any crocodile tears or anything." And neither are the coaches of the other Ivy schools.