W. Squash Three-Peats as Ivy Champs

For the first time in a long time, the Harvard women’s squash team had something to prove in its own league this year. With the addition of two hotshot freshmen, Yale had leapfrogged into the No. 2 slot in the preseason national rankings behind defending champion Trinity. Meanwhile, the extraordinarily young Crimson was left in third, despite having captured its second consecutive Ivy League championship in the 2001-02 season.

Under the guidance of co-captains Ella Witcher and junior Louisa Hall, Harvard claimed the Ivy title for the third straight year with a perfect 6-0 conference record. The Crimson also finished the year ranked second—just ahead of the Bulldogs—for the second year in a row, but the gap between Trinity and No. 2 appeared to widen. Harvard finished 8-1 overall, the lone blemish on its record an 8-1 drubbing by the Bantam squad, which went on to repeat as national champions.

But the Crimson’s 5-4 victory over the Bulldogs in its season finale sent the team out on a jubilant note, coming less than a week after Yale had convincingly beaten Harvard, 8-1, in the semifinal of the national championship, the Howe Cup. Sophomore No. 2 Lindsey Wilkins called the Crimson loss simply a “dress rehearsal”—and the final performance was without doubt a crowd pleaser.

Backed by a large group of rambunctious fans, Hall rallied at No. 1 after dropping the first game 10-8. She posted a flawless 9-0 second game before storming back from a 6-3 deficit in the third to pull out a 9-6 win. An epic fourth game capped the comeback, with Hall winning 10-8 to claim the decisive match. The Bulldogs dropped to 5-1 in the Ivies and second place.

Hall has been the Crimson’s star player since the beginning of her collegiate career, and her ability to rally after trailing by a game and claim three straight demonstrated the reason why.

“It was always in the cards that [Hall] was going to pull a big one out,” Harvard coach Satinder Bajwa said after the match.

Hall’s heroics would have been for naught without Witcher’s triumphant finish to her collegiate career moments earlier. With a four-game win of her own at No. 7, Witcher tied the match at four, making her wish for a competitive senior season come true.

“This was a great way to end it,” Witcher said. “[Beating Yale] made it so much sweeter.”

Sophomore Stephanie Hendricks also emerged with a four-game victory at No. 9. Hendricks dropped just one match during the season, which she started late because of an ankle injury, and her success solidified the bottom of the Crimson’s ladder.

At the Howe Cup, Hendricks posted Harvard’s only win against Yale, but the Crimson rebounded from its run-in with the Bulldogs with an easy 7-2 win over Penn in the consolation match.

With the exception of Trinity and Yale, the Crimson sailed through its season—the 6-3 regular-season win over Penn was the next-closest result. Harvard dropped just one individual match in its first four team competitions.

That such a young team was able to maintain an undefeated record in the Ivies speaks volumes about the talent of the newcomers on the squad, in addition to the maturity of the returning players. Now the Crimson graduates only Witcher from its top nine.

Hall should return in top form after being slowed by the flu at the end of the season. Her illness forced her to withdraw from the College Squash Association Individual Championships, but Hall still managed to finish the season as the No. 4 intercollegiate player and earn her third consecutive first-team All-Ivy selection.

Meanwhile, Wilkins ended the season ranked No. 7 and added a second straight first-team All-American selection to her own All-Ivy honors.

Wilkins, Hendricks and sophomore Hilary Thorndike will now become among the team’s elder stateswomen along with classmate Laura Delano, who had an incomplete freshman season, but returned this year to fill the No. 4 slot.

Freshman Moira Weigel emerged as a solid No. 3 this year, which was a pleasant surprise for the Crimson, while fellow rookies Tina Brown and Allison Fast filled out the rest of Harvard’s ladder in the final competitions of the year.

With this core group of competitors returning next season, the Crimson transforms from one of the youngest teams to one of the most experienced. And with its hold on the Ivies made triply secure, Harvard is now trying to get to the next level—beating Trinity and reclaiming the national championship that it last held three years ago.

—Staff writer Brenda E. Lee can be reached at belee@fas.harvard.edu.