Squash Teams Again Triumphant at Holiday Tournament

Playing on a varsity sport in college means dedication. It means sacrificing time to practice and play. For the men's squash team, one of the sacrifices is giving up a relaxing intersession to compete in the Cowles individual squash tournament in New York.

The tournament, which hosts college and non-college competitors, is named after the first Harvard squash coach and celebrated its 50th anniversary this year doing justice to the program Cowles began.

Harvard boasted some amazing individual victories, but most incredibly captured the four semifinal positions.

The two semi-final matches featured senior co-caption Tal Ben-Shachar, who is number one on the team, versus sophomore teammate Rishaad Bilimoria, who competes at number four for the Crimson. In the other semi-final matchup, sophomore Daniel Ezra, the second-seeded player on the team, defeated sophomore team member Joel Kirsch, who is seeded third on the team.

Both Ezra's and Ben-Shachar's play held true to team standings, and each defeated his teammate 3-0. Therefore, they met in the finals where Ben-Shachar, who is a Crimson editor, secured a 3-0 victory.

Despite this domination of the field by the Crimson, the most notable win was, according to Ben-Shachar, "five game thriller" in which Bilimoria overpowered Kevin Jernigan, one of the top players in the U.S. Jernigan, a native of California and Harvard graduate, succumbed to Bilimoria's relentless assault in a 17-14 fifth game tie-breaker.

Yet not everything went according to plan. During a match, Ezra tore a tendon in his playing hand wrist and is not sure when he will be able to play again or if he will be ready to play in this weekend's crucial matchup against Princeton.

Despite this setback, the Crimson still dominated the field. "We're very satisfied with our performance especially coming right out of exams," Ben-Shachar said.

The team proceeds with its preparation for its biggest match of the season against Princeton this weekend. By continuing to mount victories, it hopes to clinch a national title come Sunday.

Two nights ago on January 31st, the Crimson vanquished Williams 8-1 in a dual match.

Although the score was lopsided, Ben-Shachar claimed that the victory was not as easy as it looked. Williams was undefeated going into this contest against Harvard and many of the matches were close. But Harvard once again prevailed, sustaining an untarnished season record.

And so with just two more days until the much anticipated match against Princeton, Harvard is relying on its hard training to help it ensure a victory. They've been gearing their training schedule so that they can peak for Sunday's Championship matchup.

But before they can tackle this anticipated rivalry, the Crimson face Penn on Saturday.

Although Penn is not as strong as Princeton, Harvard's mentality all season long has been to take one match at a time and to take each opponent seriously. Ben-Shachar reinforces this outlook.

"We're not merely using the Penn match as preparation and we aren't underestimating them," Ben-Shachar said. Yet he knows--along with the rest of the team--where the Crimson's focus lies. He believes that the team can use the Penn game, which is only one day before its decisive competition against Princeton, to its favor.

The Penn matchup is useful, Ben-Shachar said, "to get rid of nerves and tension" that have been mounting in anticipation of the big match.

And although the team takes every match one at a time and does not want to speculate about the outcome of the Princeton championship match, recent individual triumphs bode well.

In the Cowles Tournament, Ben-Shachar beat Princeton's number two player in a tough quarterfinal matchup. And even more significantly, junior Andy Walter, who lost to teammate Kirsch in the quarterfinals of the Cowles Tournament, won his first round match against a higher seeded member of the Princeton squad.

Despite these accomplishments and Harvard's undefeated regular season, any athlete will agree that victories are unpredictable, no matter how good a team is.

But the hard training schedule, a home crowd advantage and the sacrifices that Harvard has repeatedly made to further its goals, should help the Crimson peak for the match of its season.

As Ezra summarizes Coach Bill Doyle's strategy, it becomes apparent that Harvard is setting up a modest mentality for the Princeton dual meet.

"The coach's phrase would be confidence with the benefit of intellect,'" Ezra said. "That means to be calm on the outside, confident on the inside, and to go out and play hard."

Women at First Cowles

While the men's squash team dominated the 50th Cowles individual tournament, the women's team participated in the inaugural year of the Cowles Tournament for women. In its first year, this female counterpart of the tournament attracted mainly Harvard players and alumni.

Despite the lack of regional or collegiate diversity, Harvard showed a strong performance with sophomore Ivy Pochoda, who is a Crimson editor, losing in the finals and senior co-caption Blair Clark losing in the quarterfinals.

Both Harvard players lost to eventual winner Margot Green, a professional player from New York and a Franklin and Marshall graduation in 1994.

In the Harvard squash tradition, this year's women's squad boasts an undefeated season where their latest victory (9-0) two nights ago versus Williams adds another step to their climb for a national title.

Coming off a National Championship undefeated season last year and with a flawless record this year, the women's squash team can expect nothing less than the best.

This weekend will probably prove to be the toughest competition this stellar squad faces this season as it takes on Penn and Princeton on its home courts. Unlike the men who are vying to beat the Tigers, the women's team is anticipating a difficult match against the Quakers, which also has an undefeated season so far.

Perhaps one of the biggest foes of the Crimson right now is the recently completed exam period.

"We're training hard out of exams and working to get back into it," Clark said.