M. Squash Splits Penn/Princeton Road Trip

The No. 3 Harvard men’s squash team was on the winning and losing ends of tough 7-2 road matches this weekend in defeating No. 8 Penn Saturday and falling to defending Ivy League champion Princeton on Sunday. With the victory over the Crimson (6-2, 4-1 Ivy), No. 2 Princeton (7-0, 6-0 Ivy) clinched the Ivy League title for the third time in four years.

Princeton 7, Harvard 2

The Tigers boast the most imposing top five in the country, with freshman sensation and intercollegiate No. 1 Yasser El-Halaby supported by seniors Will Evans, David Yik, Dan Rutherford and Eric Pearson, who comprise arguably the greatest class in Princeton history. The quintet won the US Squash Racquets Association five-man team championship earlier this year, while Evans was the 2002 intercollegiate runner-up and Yik the 2001 intercollegiate champion.

“We knew our lower seeds would have to carry us today, and that one or two of the top five players would need to pull upsets,” said freshman and Harvard No. 1 Will Broadbent.

Early on, Broadbent’s analysis appeared accurate, as sophomores Asher Hochberg and Gaurav Yadav won at the No. 6 and 8 positions, respectively, while co-captain Dylan Patterson dropped a four-game heartbreaker at No. 4 and junior intercollegiate No. 9 James Bullock fell to Evans.

Yadav won an epic five-game match against Princeton sophomore Nathan Beck, coming back to take the last three games, 10-8, 10-9 and 9-1, after trailing 2-0.

Conversely, Hochberg, the intercollegiate No. 32, came out strong against junior Aaron Zimmerman, overcoming a temporary, mid-match lull to win in four games, 9-3, 5-9, 9-6, 9-1.

“I had played Zimmerman a number of times before so I knew his game pretty well,” Hochberg said. “I have been injured a little bit this year though, so it was a big confidence booster beating a guy of his caliber.”

Bullock was frustrated all day by intercollegiate No. 5 Evans, losing 9-3, 9-6, 9-3 in the battle of All-Americans.

Intercollegiate No. 25 Patterson turned in another valiant effort against No. 17 Rutherford with the opportunity to put the Crimson ahead 3-1 and turn the tide of the match.

Patterson came out slowly, losing the first game 9-2 before establishing himself in the middle games, narrowly falling 10-8 in the second game and winning 9-7 in the third. However, Patterson couldn’t maintain his momentum and dropped the fourth game 9-3.

“I was pretty disappointed in my effort today,” Patterson said. “Though he is ranked higher than me, I have played him a lot before and I thought I had a good chance to win coming into the match. Unfortunately, I just came out flat in the first and last games and he hit a number of winners.”

With the score tied 2-2, Harvard took the court looking to hold at the No. 7 and 9 positions and find a victory or two against Princeton’s vaunted top five.

The early results were encouraging, as intercollegiate No. 7 Broadbent went up 8-5 on El-Halaby. But the nation’s top player staged a ferocious comeback, winning five straight points to take the first game 10-8.

“I came out on pure adrenaline,” Broadbent said. “I was feeling great out there and playing probably the best squash game of my life.

“I should have really taken it to him and the match may have turned out differently, but to his credit he hit four of the most incredible winners I’ve ever seen in a row to win that first game.”

Broadbent suffered a hamstring injury in practice on Wednesday and sat out against Penn to prepare for Princeton. Perhaps due to the long layoff and the lingering effects of the injury, Broadbent’s play deteriorated starkly after the first game and he dropped the next two, 9-0 and 9-3, to the Egyptian star.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, co-captain Thomas Storch and sophomore Indrek Vainu were not able to prevail at Nos. 7 and 9, respectively.

Storch lost a tough, four-game match to Dent Wilkens while Rob Siverd defeated Vainu in three tight games.

Harvard No. 5 Ziggy Whitman also had a difficult day, losing to intercollegiate No. 23 Pearson in three games despite turning in a gritty performance.

To the Crimson’s delight, sophomore intercollegiate No. 10 Mike Blumberg looked as if he might pull off a stunning upset over Yik at No. 3.

Despite losing the first game 9-6, Blumberg won the next two by 9-7 and looked primed for the victory. But Yik came back strong, winning the final two games, 9-7 and 9-4, in another matchup of 2002 All-Americans.

“That was easily one of the top intercollegiate squash matches I’ve seen in four years at Harvard,” Patterson said.

Remarkably, the loss was the first for Blumberg in two years of dual meet competition for the Crimson.

“I wasn’t thinking about Yik as a player or all the things he has done in the past,” Blumberg said. “I was simply focusing on playing my game. In the middle games, I was really in a good rhythm, moving him around a lot and forcing him into mistakes.”

Harvard 7, Penn 2

In the Penn match, things went much more smoothly for the Crimson, as it won 7-2 without its top player in the lineup.

All-American Richard Repetto narrowly defeated Bullock in four games at the top spot, while sophomore Bradley Allen dropped a heartbreaker in five games to Dan Rotteneberg at the ninth position. However, each of Harvard’s middle seven players won despite playing up a spot due to Broadbent’s absence.

“I was surprised at how good Penn was,” Whitman said. “They really played well. The Ivy League has gotten a lot better over the last few years and Penn is proof of that. It is very tough to play up even one spot in a league this competitive and it was good experience for all the guys on our team and the Penn match served as great practice for Princeton.”

Despite their split this weekend and second year in a row without the Ivy League championship, the Crimson players believe the Princeton disappointment can push them to play harder late in the year.

If coach Satinder Bajwa’s players defeat Yale Feb. 19 in the Crimson’s final regular season match, they will be on pace to play Princeton again in the semifinals of the NISRA team national championship in two weeks.

“This is a great team we played today, yet all of our losses were pretty close,” Whitman said. “Playing that well against Princeton gives us the confidence that we are one of the elite teams in college squash and just makes us hungrier for another shot at them.”