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Merrill Paces Harvard Club Win
Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Feb 11, 2003      

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It didn't undo or counter-balance the 7-2 defeat their undergraduate counterparts sustained at Jadwin Gymnasium two days prior, but the Men's A team of the Harvard Club of New York, the defending MSRA champion, conquered the Princeton Club Monday evening, three matches to zero.

MERRILL - GOODWIN
Andy Merrill '01 started the meet off with a well-played 9-7, 3 and 6 triumph at No. 3 over Princeton alumnus Chuck Goodwin '93. The power Merrill is able to generate, especially on his backhand rail, is surprising given his slender frame, and he was getting to balls up front early enough to really tee off at them. His pace was pushing Goodwin back on to his heels, frequently eliciting defensive working boasts that hung enough as they moved across the court for Merrill to pounce on and punish them. In all three games, the cumulative effect of Merrill's pressure did evidenced itself primarily during the end stages of each game, which he dominated after the two contestants had played to a statistical near-standoff until then.

In the first game, for example, Goodwin actually led 7-5 before Merrill got the serve back and ran it out in a single hand from there. The score stood 4-3 for Merrill through an eight-point stretch in the second in which the receiver won every rally in the second before Merrill rode a few tinned Goodwin forehand drop shots and a flurry of front-court winners (the last of which came on an unusual backhand three-wall nick at game-ball) that gave him the recent Harvard grad the second game 9-3. He then shot out to a 6-0lead in the third, seemingly home free, especially after a particularly disheartening series for Goodwin, who made a number of excellent gets in winning the longest point of the night, which so fatigued him that he immediately undid the benefits of that effort by promptly lifting a lob serve out of court.

Goodwin's cause seemed hopeless after that mishap, but he gamely hung in, and in fact was able to conjure up his best run of the night shortly thereafter, nicking a few crosscourt drop shots and surging to 5-6 against his taller foe, who suddenly seemed a little disorganized and unsure of himself for the first time. Had Goodwin won the subsequent rally and thereby tied the game at 6-all, the momentum would clearly have been all his, but he was wrong-footed by a late Merrill wrist-flick and never recovered.
Merrill raced through the remainder of that game, finishing Goodwin off with a
forehand reverse-corner off an over-hit Goodwin drive that caromed way off the back wall.

Goodwin had anticipated a cross court and hence was caught flat-footed as the last shot of the match careened behind him. In fairness to the latter, he is making his return to competitive play this season after a lengthy hiatus spent largely in Tennessee. Last night's match came 10 years almost to the day after his unexpected march as a Princeton senior all the way to the semi-final round of the prestigious Harry Cowles Invitational. Though thataccomplishment came with the hardball that the colleges were still utilizing at the time, Goodwin's style is well tailored to the softball game, and is already playing well enough to be ready for some praiseworthy wins once he gets a few more matches under his belt.

KARLEN - LUBIN
By the time the Merrill-Goodwin match was in its third game, 2002 Harvard captain Pete Karlen and Princeton Club captain Joe Lubin '87 were already doing battle on the other Princeton Club gallery court, which is less well lit and, more relevantly, rewards shot-making to a noticeably greater degree.

This is so because the walls seem to "grab" a ball more on this court (as opposed to the other court, where they tend to "slide") and also because ashallow drive or cross-court seems to stay lower. Both Karlen and Lubin appeared to adapt their attack to this different environment, hitting many more roll-corners and drop shots than had Merrill and Goodwin.

This No. 2 match was therefore more tactical and less an athletic contest than the No. 3 match had been. Karlen seemed to be initiating more of the action than did Lubin, though the latter's counter-punching was occasionally very effective, particularly late in the second game, after Karlen had taken the first fairly handily by a 9-3 margin. He led 8-6 in the second, but a late Lubin rally to and through a tiebreaker knotted matters at a game apiece. But though he never broke completely away, Karlen
reasserted his advantage throughout the third and fourth games, which he garnered 9-4 and 9-3 to clinch the overall result for his club.

EZRA-BEHL
Notwithstanding its irrelevance towards the team outcome, the No. 1match between Dan Ezra (whose older brother Adrian, as the top seed, had been Goodwin's first-round upset victim at that '93 Cowles) and Akihl Behl. As a Harvard senior, Ezra had led the '98 Crimson contingent to its last PotterTrophy to date in the nine-man postseason tournament with a final-round win over Trinity, while Behl, Trinity '01, was a member of that defeated Trinity team, as well as of Trinity teams that went undefeated throughout his subsequent three varsity seasons. Ezra also led the Harvard Club to last year's MSRA A League title and won last season's Gold Racquet Invitational, while Behl reached the final of this season's version of that event this past December.

Everything seemed to point to an entertaining and competitive match, but the action was abruptly truncated almost immediately when at 2-2 in the opening game, at a stage when the spectators had barely settled into their seats, Behl stretched way out for an Ezra drive and in so doing re-aggravated a left hamstring injury he had sustained two weeks ago in an indoor soccer game. There was no way he could continue, especially given his plans to participate in a flight in the Tournament of Champions at the end of this month. As it is, Behl will be fortunate if he is fully recovered by the time that event rolls around just a few weeks from now.

LEAGUE RECAP
With this 3-0 team victory in hand, the Harvard Club seems fairly well positioned to repeat as MSRA A League champion, though its members will have to contend with strong challenges from the University Club (featuring Alex Pavulans, Ryan O'Connell and Ben Elias), who reached the 2002 play-offs, as did the Yale and Lincoln Clubs, both of which will be in the hunt this year as well. The regular season ends in mid-March, with the play-offs set to extend into early April.

MATCH RECAP Harvard Club 3, Princeton Club 0

1. Daniel Ezra (HC) d Ben Elias (PC), 2-2, retired, injury
2. Pete Karlen (HC) d Joe Lubin (PC), 3-1 9-3 8-10 9-4 9-3
3. Andy Merrill (HC) d Chuck Goodwin (PC), 3-0 9-7, 3 and 5

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