W. Squash Places 2nd in Howe Cup Tourney; Princeton Wins

It was a tournament that you're glad to have when you're a good team. But when you've been the best squash team over the last two years, it was a good tournament, but not the kind that you're pleased with.

The Harvard women's squash team finished in second-place at the Howe Cup tournament at Yale, losing only to the tournament champion Princeton, 6-1.

"You're never pleased with second place," sophomore Stephanie Clark said. "We would have liked to have won it. We worked hard, we tried, but we didn't come out on top."

The Crimson defeated Trinity, 7-0, Dartmouth, 7-0, Brown, 7-0, Franklin and Marshall, 6-1, and Yale, 4-3.

The Tigers finished the seven-woman championship with a perfect 6-0 mark, ending the Crimson's two-year reign as Howe Cup champions. Harvard had a 15-match Howe Cup winning streak broken with its loss to Princeton.

Princeton's Demer Holleran, older sister of Harvard Tri-Captain Jenny Holleran, received the prestigious Betty Richey Award for excellence of play and leadership. Harvard Tri-Captain Sheila Morrissey was nominated for the award.

In the Yale match, Junior Hope Nichols, playing at number-two, lost in three games to Wendy Stewart, while Clark crushed Abby Tate in three games.

At number-six, freshman Mary Greenhill lost to Mellisa Pierceoff in five games.

"It was an unbelievable match," Nichols said. "Overall it was a fantastic weekend. It was really fun. The only bummer was that we all played at the same time--so we couldn't root our teammates on--unless you whipped or got whipped by your opponent really quickly."

Playing at number-one, Holleran lost to freshman Berkley Belknap, 3-0. Morrisey rallied from a two-game deficit to defeat Kerry Clayton.

Sophomore Daphne Onderdonk defeated Christine Unhoph, 3-1.

With the overall score tied at 3-3, the match came down to the number-five match with freshman Brooke Bailey, who didn't know her match was going to decide the overall winner.

"I didn't know it was coming down to my match," Bailey said. "If I had known, I probably would have whiffed everything. I thought we had won or lost already. It really didn't click even though both teams were watching the match. I'm glad to have won it."

Bailey showed a lot of maturity in her five-game victory over Nina Talbott. Bailey rallied from a 14-9 defecit to win 18-17 in the fifth game. Her win gave the Crimson a 4-3 victory.

Against Princeton, freshman Mary Greenhill was the only one who a match against the Tigers. Morrissey and Clark both dropped five-game decisions.

THE NOTEBOOK: The Crimson will play Brown on February 22, but the big match is in on February 25, when the squad hosts Yale with second place in the Ivies on the line.

The only titles that are left are the Ivy and national championships. Now that Princeton has pretty much sealed both titles, the Crimson hopes to finish second at worst.