W. Squash Wins Ivy Over Yale

In its second trip to New Haven, Conn. in four days, the Harvard women’s squash team captured the Ivy League Championship with an 8-1 victory over Yale Wednesday night. In winning the title, the Crimson (9-2, 6-0 Ivy) displayed impressive resilience, recovering well from a heartbreaking, 5-4 loss suffered to Trinity in the Howe Cup Intercollegiate Team Championships at Yale on Sunday.

For the No. 3 Harvard men, it was a different story entirely, as the Crimson fell to the No. 4 Bulldogs 6-3, despite having beaten them 9-0 each of the last two years. The loss left Harvard (6-3, 4-2 Ivy) with the fourth seed and gave Yale (17-2, 5-1 Ivy) the third spot in the NISRA Team Championships, which start today at the Barnaby Courts in the Murr Center.

Women

Harvard dominated Yale en route to its ninth Ivy championship in 11 years. The Bulldogs also fell 9-0 to the Crimson on Saturday in the semifinals in placing third in their own quest for the Howe Cup last weekend.

“Everyone played with a lot of focus and energy despite coming off of an exhausting weekend,” co-captain and intercollegiate No. 19 Colby Hall wrote in an e-mail.

Despite the gamut of emotions the team experienced over the weekend, Harvard got back to its winning ways in its final team match of the season.

“We’d just been there and lost by basically a point,” co-captain Margaret Elias said. “This time we asserted our dominance over the league.”

The Crimson’s top four players swept their matches, while the lone Harvard loss came in the ninth spot, where sophomore Kristin Wadhwa fell in straight games.

Perhaps the most impressive win, though, was freshman Stephanie Hendricks’ five-game triumph at No. 7. Even though the Crimson had already locked up the victory, Hendricks fought through the pain caused by a stress fracture in her ankle to play. After losing the first two games, the rookie managed to claw her way back into the match and eventually take the fifth game, 10-9.

“It was a very satisfying win,” intercollegiate No. 5 Elias said. “It was representative of the hard work we put in as a team during the entire season.”

With this victory, the Crimson bid adieu to seniors Elias, Hall, and intercollegiate No. 12 Carlin Wing, although the top players will continue training together for the individual championships, which will be held at Princeton March 1-3.

“It was very emotional, but we still have the individuals left,” Elias said. “It was strange saying that final team cheer, but I’m not saying goodbye yet.”

Men

The Crimson men were coming off their own disappointing loss, but had a week and a half to recover after suffering a 5-4 defeat to Princeton that cost them the Ivy title.

With so much time between matches, Harvard couldn’t point to lack of preparation as a reason for the loss.

“We were really focused on Yale because we knew that, although they were a different sort of team from Princeton, they were also very strong,” co-captain David Barry said.

Only three Crimson players—sophomore James Bullock, the team’s new No. 1 player, No. 4 Barry, and freshman Michael Blumberg at No. 5—came away with wins in front of an estimated 400 Yale fans.

While Bullock and Blumberg each swept their matches, with Blumberg preserving his undefeated mark, Barry’s was much more hotly contested. He jumped out to an 8-6 lead in the first game, but then hit a couple of poor shots, allowing his opponent to get back into and eventually take the game.

Chris Olsen, Yale’s No. 5, then seized the momentum he had built at the end of the first game to win the second.

“He played well, but I was really allowing him to play well,” Barry said. “I was making too many mistakes and he was running me all over the court.”

To make matters worse, Barry had begun to develop cramps. Confident in his fitness, though, Barry knew if he was struggling, his opponent had to be, too.

“You know you’re in pain, but you know everything you do to him makes it that much worse for him,” Barry said.

Indeed, Barry drew on all his will and desire to take the next three games and the match.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for Harvard. Junior Dylan Patterson dropped a grueling 3-2 match at No. 2 to Yale captain Peter Grote.

At No. 6, junior Thomas Storch couldn’t quite keep up the pace set by his opponent and dropped a match-up of contrasting styles, 3-0.

Behind Storch, freshman Asher Hochberg fought the flu to take the third game from his opponent after dropping the first two, but it wasn’t enough as he eventually succumbed in four games at No. 7.

The Crimson, though, were not devastated by the final outcome.

“We were unhappy that we lost, but we weren’t necessarily unhappy at how we performed,” Barry said. “A loss is not that bad if you compete well, and I think we did.”

Now, Harvard has little time to recoup, as it hosts the NISRA Team Championships beginning today.

With the loss, the Crimson enter the tournament seeded fourth, behind No. 1 Trinity, Ivy League champion Princeton, and the Elis. Harvard’s first-round match-up will be a rematch of a contest held last month, when the Crimson crushed 8-1Williams despite the absence of sophomore Ziggy Whitman.

With a win over Williams, Harvard would most likely earn another chance to knock off the juggernaut Bantams, who face Brown on Friday and who dealt a convincing 8-1 defeat to the Crimson only three weeks ago.

With nothing to lose playing on their home court, the Harvard men are hoping they might just be able to surprise a few people.