National Championship at Stake for W. Squash

The Harvard women’s squash team will look to defend last year’s national championship this weekend as it competes for the Howe Cup in New Haven, Conn. The Crimson will have to play several preliminary rounds first, but all signs point to a rematch with last year’s runner-up and this year’s top seed, Trinity.

The Howe Cup is an eight-team, single-elimination tournament. Last year, Harvard upset the top-ranked Bantams with a convincing 6-3 victory in the final. Two weeks ago, Trinity displaced the Crimson atop the national rankings with a riveting 5-4 triumph in Hartford, Conn. that came down to the final match.

Co-captain Colby Hall feels optimistic about Harvard’s chances in the rematch.

“I think right now we have a really good balance of confidence and a nervous edge that we’ll hopefully be able to harness into some type of good energy,” Hall said.

A part of that confidence stems from the Crimson’s improved health since the last contest. Prior to the Trinity match, freshmen Hillary Thorndike and Stephanie Hendricks had nursed injuries at the bottom of the order. While Thorndike won her match at No. 8, Hendricks fell at No. 6, 3-1, in a match that could have been the difference.

Now, the entire team is healthy—but the matchups could still be entirely different.

“We’ve heard they’ve been changing around their lineup a lot,” Hall said. “They’ve been slotting injured players around, so it’s always a mystery. If we were playing the exact same lineup, I’d have no doubt every single one of us could win.”

At the top of the lineup, Trinity’s dynamic duo of sophomore Amina Helal and freshman Lynne Leong—the nation’s top two players—pose a daunting challenge. Helal has lost only one dual match in her collegiate career. Leong’s freshman year has produced only one loss—to Helal in the finals of last month’s Constable Tournament.

“She’s the most gorgeous player I’ve ever seen,” Trinity Coach Wendy Bartlett said of Leong after the last Harvard-Trinity match.

Harvard’s top two players—sophomore Louisa Hall and co-captain Margaret Elias—will have their hands full against the two Trinity stars. The key to the match—and perhaps to Trinity’s lineup changes—will be how well the Bantams counter Harvard’s depth. Hendricks, Thorndike and fellow freshman Lindsey Wilkins, who competes at No. 3, will play the most pressure-filled matches of their young careers.

In order to reach the final, Harvard will likely have to knock off either Princeton or Yale in the semifinals. The Crimson swept Princeton 9-0 on Sunday and has yet to meet Yale. Harvard will face the Bulldogs on Feb. 20 in a match that will decide the Ivy League championship.

Notes

One of the giants of collegiate squash, Jack Barnaby ’32, passed away on Wednesday. Barnaby was the head coach of the men’s tennis and squash programs from 1937-1976, except for a few years when teams were not fielded during World War II. He went on to coach the women’s squash team from 1979 to 1982. Barnaby amassed a 374-99 combined record with the squash programs, winning 17 men’s national titles and the 1982 Howe Cup.

The Murr Center squash courts that host the men’s and women’s teams bear his name. Jack Barnaby was 92.