Blumberg beat Trinity for the second time this season—he earned the sole Harvard victory in the teams’ first meeting this year—beating No. 11 Shaun Johnstone in four games.

“It’s still disappointing because the team couldn’t come through in the end,” said Blumberg of his emotions following the loss. “[Trinity] really stepped it up. They came out here. They wanted to win and they really put everything on the line.”

Meanwhile Broadbent, who was dropped down to No. 4 due to a hip injury, had no problem disposing of intercollegiate No. 10 Yvain Badan, beating him in three straight games.

For the second straight time against Trinity, the premier match up pitting intercollegiate No. 4 Siddharth Suchde against No. 5 Bernardo Samper, occurred well after the overall match had been decided. And just as in the first meeting, Samper left victorious—this time taking the last three games against Suchde after the sophomore had easily won the first two.

For the Crimson, there was too much that was just like last time. Now, the team is left once again with the hope that next time will be different.

HARVARD 8, YALE 1

About 18 hours after the Crimson finished up trouncing Cornell 9-0, Harvard figured it might be in for a slightly more challenging day on Saturday against Yale.

The Crimson beat the Bulldogs soundly 6-3 back on Feb 12 to claim its second straight national championship. But Yale was a considerably stronger challenge than the Big Red and Harvard knew that it would be in for a tougher match.

But the challenge from Yale never materialized on Saturday and the Crimson treated them just as it had Cornell, running the Bulldogs out of the Murr Center with an 8-1 thrashing.

The strong showing was particularly encouraging for Harvard because the bottom half of the ladder played so well, giving hope that the Crimson could steal one or two matches in the 5-9 slots against Trinity.

Sheth, playing at the No. 9 spot looked at first like the lower seeding might have toyed with his confidence. Yale’s Alex Tilton ran Sheth all over the court the first game, making the sophomore look confused and beating him 9-7.

“The first game I just don’t know what happened,” Sheth said. “I didn’t have my eyeglasses and stuff and I was just really confused about what was going on. I just wasn’t in it.”

But after the break between games Sheth regrouped—found his glasses—and took control of the match, winning the next three games convincingly, 9-2, 9-4, 9-5.

Harvard got an equally encouraging sign from Broadbent who looked as though the hip wasn’t a problem at all and beat Nick Chirls in three straight games.

By the time the marquee match up between Suchde and intercollegiate No. Julian Illingworth began, Harvard had wrapped up the first eight matches and was looking for its second straight shutout.