1989 was the year that the Streak was broken.

1989 was the year that the Harvard men's squash team's six-year national championship reign came to an end.

1989 was Harvard Coach Dave Fish's last year.

1989 had its ups-and-downs, something the Crimson "dynasty" hasn't been accustomed to, but overall, it was another successful year for the program.

The Crimson shared the Ivy title with Yale and Princeton, but lost the regular season national championship by a tiebreaker procedure. Even though Harvard, Princeton and Yale all tied for first place in the regular-season, Yale won the national championship because of the tiebreaker--most games won in matches between the three teams.

Harvard's seventh straight Ivy title ties its own record set in the early 1960s.

Having lost five players from last year's team, including four of its top six players, the Crimson was picked to finish as low as fifth in the nation in some polls.

But under the leadership of Co-Captains Frank Huerta and Doug Lifford, and three talented freshmen, Harvard managed to stay competitive with Yale and Princeton.

And Harvard was able to share the Ivy title by beating previouslyundefeated Yale, 6-3, on February 22. It was the Crimson's 28th straight win over the Elis.

Lifford and junior Jon Bernheimer were both named to the All-Ivy and, for the first time in either player's career, the All-America teams.

Let's Start at the Beginning

The year started off with three 9-0 wins over Trinity, MIT and Williams. In January, the Crimson placed third in the United States Squash Racquets Association five-man tournament.

But on February 4, the Tigers recorded an 8-1 win over Harvard at Princeton, bringing the Crimson's 72-match winning streak to a crashing halt. The streak ranks as the second-longest run of consecutive victories in collegiate athletic history, right behind the UCLA men's basketball team's 88-game streak in the 1970s.

"The team had to taste the bittersweet taste of losing," Fish says. "You can't judge what type of effort you need without losing. It's like a figure skater who never falls. She's not trying hard enough to fall. I think that the team benefited from that loss."

At first, it looked as though the Crimson was out of the race for both Ivy and national championhips after the loss. But Harvard won its next five matches, including 7-2 and 6-3 wins over Franklin & Marshall and Penn, respectively.