Behind at the half-way mark in four of the opening round's five matches, the squash team stormed back to a stirring 7-2 triumph last night over a heavily favored Princeton varsity, and then travelled to Penn for a second win, 9-0.
Coach Jack Barnaby termed the Princeton victory "one of the greatest fighting upsets in my coaching career."
Jay Nelson's comeback at number nine typified the team's rally in the early matches. After losing two of the first three games, Nelson fell to the short end of a 12-4 score in the fourth. But minutes later he had won that game 18-7 and the next 15-12, to take the match.
Roger Wiegand and Paul Sullivan, also behind at the 2-1 break, collected wins for the varsity at the fourth- and sixth- ranked positions respectively. Wiegand's match was close enough so that over the afternoon he scored exactly three more points than his opponent.
Playing at eight, Clark Grew won 16-17, 17-15, 15-10, 15-14.
The only first round player to lose was Hampy Howell, competing against Jim Zug, who also won one of Princeton's lone two matches in last year's 7-2 loss to Harvard. Howell's scores were 17-15, 15-7, and 15-3.
In the second set of matches, Princeton's top man, Steve Vehslage, picked up his team's other win, defeating Peter Smith 15-14, 15-6, and 15-7.
Captain Tony Lake and seventh-ranked Doug Walter both won their matches in three games, and Bob Schwartzman pulled out the Crimson's seventh victory in a five-game match after trailing at the 2-1 break.
Against Penn, only two matches went to five games--Lake's and Sullivan's. Of the other players, Smith, Wiegand, Walter, and Nelson won in consecutive games.
The top five has drawn Pittsburgh for the opening round of the Nationals this morning, and will probably survive the tournament long enough to meet Canada this afternoon. Canada, however, defeated the Crimson 5-0 in last year's competition
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