Young Faces Pace Crimson

The No. 3-ranked Harvard women’s squash team (5-0, 3-0 Ivy) placed second in the inaugural CSA 5-person Team Championships Saturday and Sunday in Williamstown, Mass. In the five team round-robin format, the Crimson tied with Dartmouth with the best two-day record at 3-1, but placed second since Dartmouth had dealt Harvard its only loss on Saturday afternoon.

The tournament provided opportunities for some of the Crimson’s lower flights to play up and gain valuable match experience heading into the second half of the season. Harvard started sophomores No. 3 Katherine O’Donnell and No. 4 Johanna Snyder, and freshmen No. 7 Alexandra Zindman, No. 9 Diana Wilson and No. 10 Bree Sterne in positions 1-5, respectively. Normal match format has nine flights instead of five.

“It is great motivation for these five girls to kick off the rest of the season,” said assistant coach Christopher Smith, who coached the team in place of head coach Satinder Bajwa for the weekend. “Coming off a long holiday beak, it is a really good sign.”

Each player had at least one victory, with Zimmerman sweeping her four matches 3-0.

O’Donnell played her best match of the season against Williams’ No. 1, Toby Eyre, defeating her 3-1. Eyre is ranked in the top ten in the nation. O’Donnell had played Eyre in Juniors and throughout her collegiate career, having lost each time until Saturday.

“It felt really good to beat a player I had never defeated.” O’Donnell said. “It was a good win to start off the New Year.”

The Crimson will likely benefit from having the opportunity to play competitive squash at a time when most of Harvard’s rivals are on winter break and out of practice.

“It was a good warm-up for the next couple months,” O’Donnell said. “We have some momentum.”

The first CSA rankings of the season were released on December 17 and placed the Crimson at No. 3, behind only No. 1 Princeton (3-0, 2-0 Ivy) and No. 2 Penn (3-0, 3-0 Ivy). Harvard plays both the Tigers (February 9) and the Tigers (February 10) in what promises to be a challenging second half of the season. The Crimson also takes on No. 4 Yale and No. 5 Trinity to complete a tour of the nation’s top five teams.

Harvard’s season has been defined by the strong play of its underclassmen. Despite graduating 2007 national individual champion Kyla Grigg ’07 and starting only freshman and sophomores, the Crimson has turned what many programs would have considered a rebuilding year into a championship campaign. Sophmore Sandra Mumanachit and freshmen Zindman, Alisha Mashruwala, and Bethan Williams are all undefeated on the season and freshman June Tiong has turned in a strong performance at the No. 1 flight, going 4-1.

Harvard also hopes to welcome back 2007 All-Ivy League senior Supriya Balsekar, who has been out with a hip injury for the first half of the year.

The Crimson returns to action against Trinity on February 6 in Hartford, Conn.

—Staff writer Barrett P. Kenny can be reached at bpkenny@fas.harvard.edu.