Squash Teams Capture National Title at Yale

The Harvard men's and women's squash teams captured national titles last night, by ripping through the Elis at Payne Whitney Gym in New Haven, 8-1 and 5-4, respectively.

In front of large Bulldog crowds, the men's team snatched eight of the nine games contested to win its ninth championship in the last 10 years.

The women overcame a loss to Yale in New Haven earlier this season to upset the undefeated Bulldogs and deny the Eli women the chance to end a six-year championship drought.

After the women's match Harvard Assistant Coach Chris Brownell said that the conditions in Whitney Gym had been intense.

"The courts were just steaming," Brownell said.

The heat could have been caused by the 200-plus spectators--or maybe it was just that Harvard was on fire.

"They played a great match," Yale Coach Dale Walker said. "We were counting on taking the number one spots, the last three and finding a swing match."

But things just didn't quite turn out that way.

Harvard sophomore and number one player Jordanna Fraiberg beat defending intercollegiate champion Yale senior Berkeley Belknap in four games.

"Jordanna played the match of her career," Brownell said.

Fraiberg, who lost to Belknap last week at Yale, started out slowly as she dropped the first game 15-4, but after a change in strategy, she grabbed the next three, 18-17, 16-13, 15-12.

"The first game went badly I decided to make the points longer and it worked," Fraiberg said.

The last time the two teams played this season was in the finals of the Howe Cup tournament. Harvard lost 5-4 and the match came down to the last two points of a five-game struggle between Harvard's Brooke Bailey and Yale's Same Power.

Power won the deciding points and the match.

This time, however, tri-captain Bailey defeated Power 3-1 to help catapult the Crimson to the national title.

Men Roll

On the men's side, the matches went as expected. Harvard won seven of the nine matches by a score of 3-1 or better and showed why they've dominated squash for so long.

"Both teams are really talented," Piltch said. "But when you add commitment, perseverance and belief in yourself, you go along way to accomplishing what you want."

Two years ago, the last time the two teams met in New Haven to decide the national championship, Harvard was favored but it lost.

Players said that the memory of that loss helped motivate them so that they would not let Yale steal the title from them again.

"We remembered what happened," junior Marty Clark said. "But this time we were really excited and we clearly dominated."

Harvard's only loss came at the number eight spot in a tough match that junior Josh Horwitz dropped, 3-2.

But the four seniors who play in the top nine, Jeremy Fraiberg, Farokh Pandole and Co-Captains George Polsky and Johnny Kaye all won their matches.