After both team's hopes had seesawed up and down for well over two hours, Harvard pulled out two late matches to slap a 6-3 win on a surprisingly powerful Williams squash varsity yesterday afternoon at Hemnway Gymnasium.

The Crimson won the top four matches, and the bottom two. William's hopes for an upset collapsed in the fifth game of Hampy Howell's match against Bruce Brian when Howell won four consecutive points to turn an 11-14 deficit into a 15-14 win.

Howell had to overcome a 2-0 lead in games to set the stage for his closing spres. He finally won the match with a low, dribbling backhand shot from the left side of the court, which bounced off the front wall, and across toward the right.

Howell's point scores were 12-15, 16-18, 15-7, 15-8, and 15-14.

Playing at number one in an early match, Peter Smith got the Crimson off to a good start with a 3-1 victory over Williams, Clyde Buck. Behind 13-10 in the first game, Buck rallied to gain a 14-all deadlock, but Smith chose to stake the game on a single point and won it.

In the second game the same situation came up, only Buck reached 14 first and thus had the choice for the number of "overtime" points to be played. He too chose one, and won it.

Smith took the third game handily, moving from a single point lead at 9-8 to an eventual 15-8 win. In the fourth he seemed assured of an even easier victory, but Buck came back from a 12-4 deficit to tie the score at 13-all, winning the last three points on cannonball services. Smith won the match on five straight overtime points.

In the other opening match before the main gallery, fourth-ranked Roger Weigand defeated Williams' Fred Kasten in four games, 15-12, 7-15, 15-5, and 15-9.

At number three, Tony Lake needed four games to beat John Botts. He lost the first by 11-15, but won the next three by scores of 15-14, 15-13, and 15-12.

Paul Sullivan, Doug Walter, and Bob Schwartzman lost the three matches from number five to number seven, and Doug Poole and Jay Nelson won eight and nine. Walter's and Schwartzman's matches went to five games, and Poole's to four; Sullivan's and Nelson's were in straight games.