Women’s Squash Blanks Big Red

The Harvard women’s squash team didn’t need the home-court advantage to beat Cornell Saturday, but it didn’t hurt.

With a rowdy crowd on hand for its first home match of the season, the No. 2 Crimson (3-0, 3-0 Ivy) blanked the No. 10 Big Red (0-3, 0-3) by a 9-0 score at the Barnaby Squash Courts.

The 2005 part of Harvard’s schedule is less demanding than the latter half, but these matches are still valuable preparation.

“It’s easy to look past [these matches], especially when it’s away and you don’t even have your friends here cheering you on,” captain Allison Fast said. “But when it’s here, and your friends are here, it creates a match-like atmosphere so it’s more competitive.”

Harvard came into the match with no current member of its roster ever having lost to Cornell, and that streak continued Saturday. No Crimson player struggled to dispatch her competition, and Harvard’s top three—freshman No. 1 Lily Lorentzen, junior No. 2 Kyla Grigg, and sophomore No. 3 Supriya Balsekar—all swept their Big Red opponents with little difficulty.

Junior No. 5 Audrey Duboc had her customary vocal cheering section on hand to see her defeat Allison Laycob 3-0.

“I like to rally the troops for matches, get everyone down here,” Duboc said. “It’s fun to have an amped-up crowd behind you...when the caliber’s not as high, it’s sometimes not as exciting.”

Harvard coach Satinder Bajwa was pleased with his team’s energy and what it bodes for the second half of the season.

“[The women] are playing as a team, they’re playing for each other,” Bajwa said. “On the match where we could drop out in a game or a match, it’s not like that. We’re seeing that kind of energy [that] is going to help us against the Yales and the Trinities, when it really comes to the big matches.”

—LISA J. KENNELLY