M. Squash Struggles

For the reigning National Champion Harvard men's squash team, rigorous competition is hard to find.

But when the Crimson traveled to Hartford, Conn., this weekend, it found it.

The USSRA Five Man National Team Championships matched Harvard up against three higher-seeded teams in Princeton, Amherst and the University of Chicago.

Most of the time the Crimson rolls over its opponents, but this weekend was different, as the team posted a 2-2 record for the tournament.

After cruising past the Trinity B team in the opening round, Harvard defeated higher-seeded Amherst in the quarterfinals by a narrow 3-2 margin.

Next up was Princeton in the semifinals where the Crimson met an unusual fate, a 4-1 defeat.

"The Princeton match was disappointing," co-captain Tim Wyant said. "But their top five players are extremely competitive. In a regular season match, we could beat them."

This tournament was organized differently from regular season matches making this weekend's results somewhat deceiving.

Ordinarily, intercollegiate squash matches involve nine players from each team. However, this tournament divided the teams into only five players per squad. Because Harvard's main strength is in its depth, the tournament format favored the opposition.

Harvard was forced to field two teams for the draw. The A-team, seeded No. 6, was composed of the top five players for the Crimson--Deepak Abraham, Wyant, Eric Lauer, Andrew Merrill, and Pete Collin--while the B-team was made up of the next five players--Grayson Witcher, co-captain Dave Beitchmann, Shondip Ghosh, Zeev Ben Shachar and Dave Barry.

Although the A-team was not as strong as a couple other A teams, the Harvard B team was much stronger than other B teams suggesting that the Crimson will fare better in intercollegiate matches than in this format.

After the loss to the Tigers, Harvard met the University of Chicago in the 3rd/4th place match. Again, Harvard suffered a disappointing defeat by a score of 3-2.

However, finishing fourth was an unexpected result for a No. 6 seed.

"This weekend was very positive for us because prior to [this weekend], we didn't have a clear idea of what we were up against," sophomore No. 1 player Deepak Abraham said. "We thought some of these teams were untouchable, but now we know that we can definitely compete with them. And we are definitely capable of winning the National Championship again."