SEASON RECAP: Mixed Bag for Men’s Squash

The Harvard men’s squash team (7-5) ended the 2009-10 season by maintaining its rank at fifth in the nation during the CSA National Team Championships.

The team’s performance and consistent effort throughout the campaign were punctuated by co-captain Colin West’s victory over Princeton freshman Todd Harrity to claim the national individual title a week later.

“I wouldn’t say that we had a real shining year,” West said. “There were some matches that we could have won, like [those against] Yale and Princeton. They were probably stronger than us on paper, but we didn’t quite come through.”

At the national team tournament, the Crimson fell to fourth-seeded Princeton, 8-1, with West picking up the lone victory for Harvard.

The squad was able to come back from the tough loss to defeat Western Ontario and Cornell handily, both by a score of 7-2. These final two victories secured a fifth-place finish for the Crimson at the championships.

Trinity took home the team title for the 12th year in a row, though Harvard still leads in all-time national championships. The Crimson has won a total of 31 championships, with the last coming in 1998.

“From our competitors’ standpoint,” West said, “there were a lot of thoughts that Harvard would not have a very strong team this year.”

The Crimson denied these expectations with several impressive individual performances.

West, who led the team at the No. 1 spot, garnered his third straight All-American first-team honors with his national title and was named Ivy League Player of the Year.

Junior Richard Hill, playing No. 2 for Harvard at the team and individual championships, earned a spot on the All-America Second Team after going 9-6 on the season and winning a first-round battle at the CSA Individual Championships.

Freshman Jason Michas had an impressive first individual championship appearance, winning four matches on his way to the Malloy Cup finals. But in the final match, Michas fell to Yale junior Christopher Plimpton in five games, dropping the last of these games by the tight margin of 11-9.

“Overall, we came through in the clutch moments,” West said. “But we didn’t achieve everything that we wanted to.”

The spring season started out strong, with four straight victories for the Crimson against Brown, Williams, Dartmouth, and Cornell. Then-No. 3 Rochester handed the Crimson its first loss, 7-2, on Jan. 23, though West and freshman Alexander Ma picked up wins for Harvard. The squad remained unfazed by the defeat, though, and continued to top lesser-ranked opponents.

“We started out with a couple of very narrow wins against competition we would normally [have] beaten,” West said. “But then we had some really good wins after that.”

Harvard also picked up a win against Penn, 7-2, in the regular season and recorded another close victory over Cornell at the CSA National Team Championships.

In the squash regular season, at least for Harvard, national rankings were easily distinguishable, with the fifth-ranked Crimson suffering four losses to the four teams ranked ahead of it: Trinity, Yale, Rochester, and Princeton.

“We didn’t have any huge upsets like we had last year,” co-captain Frank Cohen said. “But I think it was a good season, and I think what we’re most proud of is not necessarily the results, but rather the team that we created.”

—Staff writer Catherine E. Coppinger can be reached at ccoppinger@college.harvard.edu.