Intercollegiate Squash:

North Carolina 5, Duke 4

Chapel Hill NC, Nov. 9, 2000. -- In a match that was nip and tuck from beginning to end, North Carolina evened the score with Duke yesterday, downing the Blue Devils, 5-4, in the first intercollegiate squash match ever played at the Chapel Hill campus. Last month, Duke had topped the Tar Heels, 6-4, at Duke.

Both teams were strengthened by the appearance of players who weren't able to perform in the earlier match. On the other hand, two of Carolina's players were sick and unable to play, forcing the Tar Heels to default at Number Nine.

Again, though, North Carolina was strong at the top as Will Morris and Matt Roland repeated their victories over Nabil Mustafa and Parnav Kanoria in straight games. And again, Duke's depth in quality was apparent as it won the matches at the lower end of the ladder where Atif Qureshi and Sebastian de la Fuente were much more experienced than Paul Scruggs and Paul Vollman, who are both in the first year of play.

But UNC's team was immeasurably improved by the return to action of James Ford, a world-class Junior racquetball player who is making a nice transition to squash this season. He simply hammered David Niewood, thus helping to set the tone for the war that took place in the three matches just below his, which were played just after he finished.

The team that would win two of the three middle matches would take the overall match, it became clear. In the first of those matches to finish, Duke's Erika Knowles fought back from a 1-1 tie and took Carolina's Jesse Moore, going away. That put the contest onto the racquets of the two Hubbard brothers in the Tar Heel ladder, Carl and Joe, both of whom had lost to Duke in the October 20 match.

But not today. Facing Duke's excellent players, Leo Villegas and Nidhi Nath, the Hubbards fought and fought. The points were long, the games went on and on, and the four t-shirts blackened with sweat. But finally, the Tar Heel brothers pulled it out, both in 3-1 matches.

At the marvelously good-natured post-match pizza party -- an apparent tradition already -- both teams exulted in the closeness of the competition, and all the players hoped for more. Duke's Justin Wong said he was going to arrange a match with N.C. State, thus competing the squash Triangle. And UNC leader Will Morris announced to all that he had made contact with some undergraduate players at the University of Virginia. So all went away hoping for even further growth in the Atlantic Coast Conference Squash "League?"

The line-ups and individual results:

Rank	UNC	Duke	Winner	Scores
1.	Will Morris	Nabil Mustafa	UNC	9-1, 9-1, 9-5
2.	Matt Roland	Parnav Kanoria	UNC	9-6, 9-0, 9-2
3.	James Ford	David Niewood	UNC	9-1, 9-0, 9-4
4.	Carl Hubbard	Leonardo Villegas	UNC	9-6, 5-9, 9-3, 9-5
5.	Jesse Moore	Erika Knowles	Duke	6-9, 9-5, 2-9, 2-9
6.	Joe Hubbard	Nidhi Nath	UNC	5-9, 9-7, 9-6, 9-3
7.	Paul Scruggs	Atif Qureshi	Duke	7-9, 6-9, 5-9
8.	Paul Vollman	Sebastian de la Fuente	Duke	2-9, 1-9, 0-9
9.	Courtney Pinard	Justin Wong	Duke	Default

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