Afternoons in Hemenway gym just won't be the same.

Weekends will no longer bring tales of victory.

The Harvard women's squash team will win no more this season because this season is over. The team ended its season last weekend in Philadelphia with a second-place finish at the Intercollegiate Squash Championships.

Through determination and hard work--practice and more practice--the team was able to reach great heights. The Crimson (8-1 this year) lost only 11 of its 81 individual matches. The only team which wasn't defeated by the racquets of wrath was Princeton. The Tigers, who handed Harvard its only defeat of the season, knocked off the defending champions to become number one in the squash world. Harvard tripped to number two. But hey, two out of 26 ain't bad.

"The whole season was productive," said Coach Steve Piltch. "We did as well as I thought we were capable of doing, although it'd be nice to have a chance to play Princeton again."

Unfortunately, the raquetwomen won't have a chance to replay that fateful game which ended the Crimson's 16-match winning streak. The Tigers won, 6-3, in an intense, competitive contest. The Tiger's number-one player, Demer Holleran, sister of Harvard's Jenny Holleran, had no sisterly compassion. She blanked number-one seed Jenny in three quick games.

But that's the bad news. The good news is that the women won, nay dominated, the four matches following the Tiger loss. They pummeled Brown, 8-1, Dartmouth, 9-0, and Franklin & Marshall, 8-1.

Piltch expected the Crimson's matchup with Yale in the final weekend to be a close contest. Harvard had just barely beaten the Elis, 4-3, at the Howe Cup two weeks earlier.

"It should be the best game of the season," said Piltch before the match.

After Harvard defeated the Elis, 8-1, in a series of close games, Piltch's words changed to the tune of:

"It was the best win of the season. We're still a pretty good team," he said.

And the players proved that they're still a pretty good team at the Intercollegiate Championships last weekend at Penn. Although Crimson couldn't produce any intercollegiate champions, as it did last year with Diana Edge, it still emerged from the national tournament with four All-Ivy players.

Sheila Morrissey, tri-captain and number-two seed on the team, upset Holleran--the Crimson's number one player--in the final match of her career. The upset enabled her to climb from last year's 19th-placed ranking to become the nation's sixth-ranked player.

"I'm really happy with how I played this year," Morrissey said. "I did better than I thought I would."

Morrissey and Holleran, along with junior Hope Nichols and sophomore Stephanie Clark, all left the tournament as All-Ivy players. Holleran, Nichols and Clark, the Crimson's top three returning players, will be next year's tri-captains.

"Next year should be a good year," Piltch said. "Although we have some strong players leaving, we have a good nucleus coming back."

And indeed, although seniors Morrissey, Liz Reynolds, Martha Berkman--the number-nine seed who went undefeated this year--and Louise Zonis will depart, a strong line of successors follows. Freshmen Brooke Bailey and Mary Greenhill, sophomore Daphne Onderdonk and junior Grace Sheffield will return to comprise that "strong nucleus" on the squash ladder.

But until next year, the women's squash team can only dream of further success. Until next year, it can only dream of re-playing Princeton. And until next year; it can only dream of regaining its 1987 status as the number one team in the nation.

Tidbits

Since the Ivy League was formed in 1955-56, the Crimson has dominated Ivy play. Since 1955, Harvard has captured 136 titles. The nearest team is Princeton with 108, followed by Yale (80), Cornell (77), Penn (73).

The Strike Ends

After being on strike for 31 days, the Prarie View A&M football team ended its protest. The players, who said they went on strike because they felt Coach Wayne Catchings ignored academics and conducted dangerous drills, say they decided to end the walkout because they feel there will be a new coach named.

Quote of the Week: "I didn't know if I was winning or I was losing. I didn't know I was making a comeback either. All I could think about was 'Oh My God, my thesis is due in 11 days."--Harvard women's fencing Captain Penelope Papailias about her rally from a 4-0 deficit to defeat Yale's top-ranked fencer at the Northeast Regionals last weekend in New Haven.