HARVARD 9, BROWN 0

The Crimson cruised to a win in its season opener, dismantling the overmatched Bears on the road.

Hill set the tone for the weekend with his 3-0 dismissal of Brown’s Brad Thompsen at No. 2 on Friday, winning 11-4, 11-5, 11-5.

“Richard played pretty well,” Michas said. “He struggled against the Brown kid the last time we played Brown, and he took him down pretty easily this time.”

The Bears’ Adrian Leanza gave West a scare in the competitors’ third game. After West took the first two games by identical scores of 11-4, the senior needed extra time to dispose of his opponent, taking the final game, 12-10.

“The guys kind of rely on me and almost assume I’m going to win these matches,” West said. “I don’t want to let them down.”

Scherle, Michas and rookie Alexander Ma all earned their first career victories on Friday. Scherle and Michas rolled to 3-0 sweeps, while Ma rallied after dropping a close first game to Brown’s Alex Heitzmann, taking the match, 9-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-5.

“We have a lot of freshmen, but they managed to play pretty mentally tough,” West said.

Endresen, Cohen and No. 9 sophomore William Ahmed took their matches in easy 3-0 wins, while senior Alex Lavoie needed an extra game, but prevailed, 3-1, at No. 7.

As the team looks ahead to the meat of its schedule, the opening weekend has set the tone for success.

“I think that our scrimmages were up and down, and this weekend put us on the right track,” Cohen said.

—Staff writer Loren Amor contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.