With another season of intercollegiate squash in the record books, an unusual distribution of squash power throughout the Intercollegiate League has become apparent. On the basis of the last three months' play, Harvard emerged as the best nine-man team in college squash, Yale's national team (five-men) champions as the best five-man team, and Princeton's Steve Vehslage--National Intercollegiate Singles Champion--became college squash's best one-man team.

Although Navy actually won the Intercollegiate League title, it is difficult to call them the best nine-man squad in college squash because of the fact that their success seems to be more contingent on the home court advantage than is usually the case. On the other hand, Harvard showed throughout the season one of the most powerful, well balanced teams ever to play in intercollegiate competition.

The most striking verification of this fact came last weekend when John Davis, number six player on coach Jack Barnaby's varsity, won the consolation singles tournament at the National Intercollegiate Championships and in doing so defeated a good number of top men from other college squads. Another demonstration of balance was given during the Yale match when the Crimson managed to hold Yale's top five--which had won the National Team Title only one week before--to a 3-2 split while winning the bottom four singles to take the match.

However, the Crimson's depth is hardly an unusual occurrence. Barnaby's main strategy each season is to develop a squad of nine players who can all play good squash. If he happens to have a few men who can play excellent squash, so much the better, but it is balance which has made Barnaby's teams as consistently top-flight in squash as Bob kiphuth's Yale teams have been in swimming.

The fact is that excellence tends to breed excellence, and for this reason a long string of individual stars have come to Harvard over the years, giving Harvard an often spectacular top five as well as an astonishing number of National Intercollegiate Champions. Until Yale's fine victory this winter, Harvard was the only college ever to win the National Team Championship--ten times--and in the past few years the names Ufford, Heckscher and Sears emphasize Harvard's striking dominance at the top.

This season, however, this trend was finally reversed, and it seems likely that it will remain at least partially reversed for the next few years, as Vehslage of Princeton will clearly dominate Intercollegiate squash during that time and may well become the best player in the world.

Yale will lose all but captain Sam Howe from its excellent top six and will probably not be much of a contender in any respect next winter. The Crimson will lose four men by graduation, but the fact that Gerry Emmet, Tim Gallwey and Fred Vinton will be returning from the top five coupled with the arrival of freshman star Romer Holleran in the varsity ranks should give Harvard the best top five in the country, although Princeton could surprise.

At the nine-man team level, despite the loss of captain Charlie Hamm, Pete Lund, Davis, and Wally Stimpson, the Crimson will probably retain its mastery. In brief, things should be back fairly close to normal next year at Hemenway Gymnasium, with only an individual champion lacking to make Harvard domination complete; this past season may have been the closest thing to a balance of power that Intercollegiate squash will see for quite some time.