Top-Ranked Women's Squash Takes Down Trinity

In a battle of the top two teams in the country, the Harvard women’s squash team showed why it deserved its No. 1 ranking. The Crimson came away with a close, 5-4 win over second-ranked Trinity College in arguably its toughest match of the year, maintaining its perfect 2013-2014 record.

The last time the two teams played was in the 2013 Howe Cup finals at last season’s CSA National Championships, which ended in a narrow, 5-4, decision in Harvard’s favor. This year’s competition was no less dramatic, with the outcome coming down to the very last match. Junior Amanda Sobhy beat Trinity sophomore Kanzy El Defrawy in straight sets by scores of 11-4, 12-10, and 11-4 to clinch the deciding match for the Crimson.

“I think that the match last night went extremely well,” Sobhy said. “On paper, we were probably the weaker team, so we didn't have any pressure on us, which was a good thing because it allowed some players to play more freely….We have all been working so hard and so we just went in there last night and played our game and left everything on court.”

The Harvard women are undefeated after they lost a game last season for the first time in almost four years to Princeton.

“We’re trying not to focus [on being undefeated],” junior co-captain Haley Mendez said. “It’s obviously nice, and it’ll help with our seeding for nationals, but in the tournament everyone sort of goes in with a clean slate and any team could win the tournament on that particular day.”

Both Harvard and Trinity played remarkably tight throughout the match, with no clear winner emerging through the first eight matches. The closeness of the two teams was perhaps most evident in the contest between the No. 2 seeds, where Bantam co-captain Catalina Palaez defeated Mendez, 3-2. After trading sets to knot the score at 2-2, Palaez narrowly escaped a 10-8 deficit to earn a 16-14 win over Mendez and tie up the overall matchup at three games apiece. Palaez remained undefeated on the season with the win.

The next two matches didn’t give either team an advantage, as Harvard freshman Dileas MacGowan and Trinity freshman Anna Kimberley traded wins in the fourth and seventh positions. Each rookie came out with a 3-1 victory to keep the teams neck-and-neck with four wins apiece, leaving Sobhy in the first position to notch the victory for the Crimson.

“There’s always extra pressure [on the deciding match], but I am feeling very confident about my game at the moment, so I am super happy just to be able to play for Harvard and my teammates and bring home the win,” Sobhy said. “Knowing that it is 4-4 and you are the decider makes you push harder and fight for everything, so both myself and my opponent last night probably left everything we could on court.”

After bouncing back from some difficult matches in January with wins over both Cornell and Columbia, Harvard junior Julianne Chu and freshman Megan Murray continued to show strong play in the sixth and ninth positions, respectively. Both swept their matches with 3-0 wins to give Harvard a 2-0 lead early in the match.

Trinity bounced back, however, as Bantam seniors Wee Nee Low and Jennifer Pelletier took wins to tie the match at two-all. Low topped Katie Tutrone in the third spot with scores of 11-5, 8-11, 11-8, and 11-7, and Pelletier defeated Isabelle Dowling in the eighth position by a 3-1 tally.

The Crimson’s fifth win came in the fifth position, where sophomore Michelle Gemmell swept Trinity’s Ashley Tidman, 11-5, 11-9, 11-8, to earn the victory. The team now looks to the next few weeks, where they will play against Yale and then move onto the national tournament.

“We have all been working so hard this season, and I think this is the fittest and best I have ever seen the team throughout my three years here at Harvard,” Sobhy said. “Hopefully we can keep up the good form for the next two weeks….It would be great to reclaim the Ivy Title and defend our national title. I have a lot of faith in everyone that we can do it.”

—Staff writer Glynis K. Healey can be reached at ghealey@college.harvard.edu.