Squash Teams to Play Yale for Nat'l Championship

Never take a national championship for granted.

Seniors on the defending national champion Harvard men's squash team remember a match two years ago in New Haven.

The Crimson were favored in that match, but things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to.

Yale took the match and the national title.

Harvard will try to avenge that loss as the Crimson and the Bulldogs play for the Ivy and national championships today in New Haven.

If the heavily favored Crimson should win, it would mean a ninth national title for the team in the last ten years.

If Harvard should lose, it would mean a second painful upset by Yale in the last three years.

Top Six Formidable

Harvard's top six are formidable. Yale Coach Dave Talbott said that this Crimson team may well be the best since he has been with the Bulldogs.

"They're really good," Talbott said yesterday. "The team probably has the strongest top six in the last 10 to 20 years. All of them could be number ones on other teams."

Lost in Talbott's effusive praise of Harvard is his own team, which is undefeated. In a preseason scrimmage against the Crimson, Yale hung tough, losing just 5-4.

Crimson Coach Steve Piltch acknowledged that the way things look on paper usually doesn't tell the whole story.

"They're going to have a big crowd and they're excellent at home," Piltch said. "And the rivalry is really intense."

Players on the Crimson said that although they felt good about the match, they had to be wary of Yale.

"We are highly confident going down to Yale just as the narwhale is sure that it will dominate the arctic seas as a predator," said Co-Captain George Polsky.

"However, we note that those Bulldogs can get mighty feisty when cornered and we must beware of their ferocious bite--in a nutshell it's going to be a lovely match," he added.

Senior number one player Jeremy Fraiberg said that if both teams play their best squash, Harvard should win.

"We've trained hard all year for this," Fraiberg said. "We'll be really disappointed if we don't win and we're conscious of possible upsets."

For Harvard's five seniors, today's match could be the perfect way to bring their Ivy league careers to a close.

"It'll be a great match," said senior number five player Farokh Pandole. "And a win at Yale would be a very sweet way to end things."