Men's Squash Falls to Yale, Beats Brown in Ivy League Clashes

No. 6 Harvard (5-5, 5-2 Ivy League) missed its opportunity this weekend to win a share of the Ivy League title. Starting the weekend at home in Cambridge, the Crimson soundly defeated the No.16 Brown Bears (5-10, 0-7) before losing a heartbreaker against No. 2 Yale Bulldogs (12-2, 7-0).

“From the match [against Yale] it was just realizing that we’re up there with all the other teams and there isn’t a lot that separates from the other teams,” sophomore Seif Eleinen said. “It’s just a matter of all of us bringing our A-game on the same day and leaving it all out there.”

YALE 6, HARVARD 3

With a chance to earn a share of the Ivy League title the Crimson fell in New Haven against the Bulldogs at the Brady Squash Center. Coming into the weekend as the second seed, the Crimson needed a win to claim a share of the Ivy League title with Yale, but the Bulldogs earned their first win over Harvard since the 2012 season to win the outright title.

Ryan, Koh, and Murray each notched victories for Harvard, but it wasn’t enough to push past Yale. Ryan and Murray earned a pair of sweeps for the Crimson. Ryan picked up his fourth win of the season at the No. 1 position, while Murray earned his fifth at the No. 5 spot.

Koh meanwhile, had to go to limit as he came back from being two games down against senior Sam Fenwick to earn his seventh victory of the season.

After McLaughlin suffered a dislocated shoulder during his first game, the match ended in a default despite the fact that McLaughlin was ahead of Yale sophomore Max Martin, 2-0. Following the injury, McLaughlin’s absence was felt by the rest of the team.

“It was definitely going to be a tight match, but with Devin out plus lots of the matches could go either way, it was just tough” Elenein said.

While Eleinen was swept in his face off with junior Liam McClintock, Gosset fell by just one set, 3-2, to sophomore Pierson Broadwater. Prior to this weekend, Eleinen was the only Harvard player with an unblemished match record.

“Today some people played the best they played all season but some other people just had bad matches,” Eleinen said. “We were never able to play our best squash at the same time.”

Despite the loss, many on the team feel confident that they can do well at the CSA Team National Championship in New Haven.

“It’s just a matter of all of us bringing our A-game on the same day and leaving it all out there,” Eleinen said. “It’s just a matter of picking ourselves up and doing what we need to do.”

HARVARD 9, BROWN 0

The Harvard men earned their fifth victory in the Ivy League for this season with a 9-0 sweep over Brown Friday night at the Murr Center Squash Courts on Senior Night. This was Harvard’s second sweep over an Ivy League foe this season.

Harvard picked up its 26th straight victory over Brown and dropped only two sets en route to the sweep.

Sophomore David Ryan earned his third victory of the season competing at the No. 1 spot, sweeping sophomore Thomas Blecher, 3-0.

“We were pretty consistent against Brown. We all played decent squash…and got business done” Ryan said. This was also Ryan’s first victory at the No. 1 spot.

Sophomore Bradley Smith and junior co-captain Bryan Koh picked up their fifth and seventh wins competing at the No.2 and No.3 spot, respectively, in the contest against Brown.

Sophomore Madhav Dhingra and Junior Dylan Murray both had their fourth victories for the season at the respective No. 4 and No. 5 positions, while junior co-captain Devin McLaughlin had his sixth win of the season at the No. 6 spot. Freshman Alexi Gosset earned his fourth win at the No. 7 position, and Sam Goldberg picked up his first win of the season at the No. 8 position.

Matt Roberts completed the sweep for the Crimson at the No. 9 spot.