The squash team sneaked past one tough opponent last week and just barely squeezed by another to stretch its winning streak to seven. Elsewhere among the Yardling teams, the winners (track, wrestling, and swimming), continued to win, the losers (basketball) continued to lose, and hockey maintained an erratic record by splitting.

The week's most crucial contests, however, were clearly fought by the squash team against two perennial prep school powers, Deerfield and St. Paul's.

Deerfield, led by Larry Heath, national junior champion, may be the strongest prep school team in the east. Heath scored two tournament victories over the Christmas vacation, and Deerfield's number two man, Rick Stern, placed right behind him in one of these.

Both Heath and Stern proved Wednesday to be equal to their billings. Heath made Crimson number-one man Craig Stapleton look like a novice, thrashing him 3-0. Stern found the going rougher but managed to rally and beat Mat Hall 3-2.

Two men, however, do not make a squash team, and the Yardlings swept--though not without difficulty--the last five positions to earn a 5-2 victory.

John Harwood and Doug MacDonald, at numbers three and five, earned the Crimson's only easy wins, taking their opponents 3-0 and 3-1. Everybody else--Val Lewthwaite (4), Frank Amory (6), and Dick Rogers (7)--went the full five games.

At St. Paul's on Saturday, things weren't much easier, as indicated by the final score of 3-2. Stapleton again lost in three games, and Harwood, now playing number four, dropped a thriller, 3-2, with four games going into extra points.

If anything, the squad's schedule is rougher from here on in. Wednesday the team faces Exeter (a 4-1 victim in December) and Saturday an unknown but undoubtedly strong squad from Princeton. Next week, a return match with Andover, the only blemish on the team's eight-game record, is slated.

Meanwhile, the other Yardling squads played their roles perfectly during the past week.

* Track--

The track team mauled two more opponents--Andover, 57-33, and Dartmouth, 77-32--running its record to 4-9.

At Dartmouth, the Crimson cindermon won all but two events and set a new two-mile relay record, 3:16.2, with Jim Smith, Jim Swift, Neil Houston, Charles Redman running the four legs.

* Wrestling--

The wrestling team also continued its winning ways with a humiliating defeat of Penn, 33-3. The grapplers also stand 4-0.

* Basketball--

Not all news is good, however: the basketball team dropped another--its sixth of the season in as many outings.

The score this time was 87-70 with the Brown freshmen on top. There are seven more games left on the team's schedule and the competition doesn't promise to get any easier.

The other two Yardling squads, swimming and hockey, are more or less question marks.

* Swimming--

The swimmers remained undefeated last weekend by defeating Exeter Academy 57-38, but their stiffest competition is still two weeks away. The last three meets--against Princeton (Feb. 22), Andover (Feb. 29) and Yale (March 7)--could bring a presently promising season to a disappointing close.

* Hockey

As for hockey, no one can safely predict what will happen. All one can do is report what has happened: this week the icemen lost to B.C. 4-1 and clobbered Dartmouth 6-1