SEASON RECAP: Crimson Struggles With League Tests

The women’s squash team has established itself as one of the premier programs in the country, and the 2006-07 season will go down in the books as another fine showing from coach Satinder Bajwa and company.

The Crimson compiled a 4-2 record in Ivy League regular-season play en route to a third-place league finish, losing close matches to national powerhouses Penn and Princeton. Harvard then faced both teams a second time in the Howe Cup, upsetting the Quakers in the semifinals before falling to the Tigers in the national championship match.

Leading the team was captain Kyla Grigg, who capped off an undefeated season by claiming the national title at the ISA Individual Championship. Grigg was later named Ivy League Player of the Year.

Grigg was joined by three teammates at ISAs: juniors Jennifer Blumberg and Supryia Balsekar and fellow senior Audrey Duboc. Both Blumberg, who posted an 8-4 regular season record, and Balsekar, who went 11-1, were named All-Ivy.

This season’s success came despite losing last year’s top player Lily Lorentzen, who transferred to Stanford after winning the ISA title as a freshman.

The Crimson cruised through the early stages of the Ivy season before encountering a much greater challenge against perennial contender and nonconference foe Trinity.

Harvard pulled out a win against the Bantams in front of a rowdy home crowd on the strength of an impressive comeback from Duboc. With the two teams knotted at four matches apiece and the senior down, 0-2, Duboc fought her way back from the brink of elimination to eventually triumph, 2-9, 7-9, 9-3, 9-6, 9-6.

“I knew we needed this match,” Duboc said afterwards. “I was very nervous in the beginning, until a game and a half in, then I started playing and got nervous again. It’s like this cycle of being nervous and playing and nerves and playing. It was an internal battle playing them.”

The intensity of the showdown against Trinity paled in comparison, however, to the importance of that weekend’s road trip to face Ivy League heavyweights Penn and Princeton.

Unfortunately, the weekend was unkind to the Crimson. Harvard entered its match against the Quakers at 6-0 before losing, 6-3, and then dropped its match against Princeton the next day by a count of 7-2.

The next weekend at the Howe Cup, however, the fifth-seeded Crimson toppled second-seeded Penn, 6-3, propelling it to the title match against top-seeded Princeton.

Grigg attributed her team’s one-week turnaround to a change in attitude.

“We were really determined,” she said. “After we lost, we realized these were matches we could have won. It just takes a few games to win, especially when you’re so close.”

Harvard then lost, 6-3, to Princeton, as the Tigers took home the national title.

The week after the Howe Cup, Harvard faced the Bulldogs at the Murr Center and defeated them by a score of 6-3. It was the end of the season for the team, but it was only the beginning for Grigg.

Having lost in the championship match the past two seasons, she entered this year’s ISA Individual Championship as the tournament’s top seed and early favorite. After a pair of three-game wins in the opening two rounds, Grigg was extended to four games in the quarters and the semifinals before eventually defeating Penn freshman phenom Kristen Lange in the championship match to claim the national title.

“It was amazing.” Grigg said. “It was the perfect way to go out.”

—Staff writer Douglas A. Baerlein can be reached at baerlein@fas.harvard.edu.