W. Squash Ivy Dynasty Ends With Loss to Yale

After three years, the jig is up for the No. 4 Harvard women’s squash team.

Looking to salvage a share of its fourth-straight Ivy Championship, the Crimson proved to be a mere speed bump on No. 1 Yale’s road to the 2004 league crown and the regular-season national women’s squash title.

The undefeated Bulldogs (10-0, 5-0 Ivy) beat Harvard (5-3, 4-2) 7-2 at Yale on Saturday, claiming national and league glory as well as the Barhite Cup, given to the regular season dual-match national champion.

The Crimson, with two Ivy losses, finished third in the league for the first time since the 1999-2000 season—when none of the current team members was even enrolled at Harvard.

“It’s sad, but you can’t win it every year,” co-captain Louisa Hall said. “I’m lucky to have won it three times.”

Although the Crimson suffered its first Ivy loss in four years last weekend against Princeton, the team still hoped to split the league title with a win over Yale.

But the Bulldogs—who earlier this season shocked 2002 and 2003 national champion Trinity 5-4—proved too much for Harvard to overcome. Though the Crimson will still play Yale as well as its other vanquishers—No. 2 Trinity and No. 3 Princeton—in the Howe Cup this weekend, the Ivy title is, for this year, out of reach.

“Yale has been building up a solid, deep team these past few years,” sophomore Moira Weigel said. “It’s difficult to compete with the kind of talent that they’re bringing in.”

Harvard’s only wins came in hard-fought, five-game duels in the No. 4 and No. 5 slots. Freshman intercollegiate No. 32 Lydia Williams took out intercollegiate No. 12 Frances Ho 9-2, 0-9, 1-9, 9-2, 9-6, coming back from a 2-1 deficit to top her experienced opponent.

Weigel, at No. 5, also rallied from a 2-1 deficit disadvantage to claim victory over intercollegiate No. 20 Rachita Vora, 5-9, 9-3, 7-9, 9-5, 9-3.

Up far in the third game before falling 7-9, Weigel credited the vocal support from her teammates and coaches with helping her mount the comeback.

“I just decided I wasn’t going to lose,” Weigel said.

“Moira and Lydia were amazing, they played with such heart,” Hall added. “The middle part is the most vaunted part of Yale’s lineup.”

But their strong performances against highly-ranked foes were not enough to offset the overall domination of the Bulldogs, who boast three of the top five intercollegiate players in the country, including the top-ranked Michelle Quibell.

Quibell—only a sophomore—took out Harvard’s No. 1 Hall, the intercollegiate No. 4, in four games. Hall jumped out to an early lead, winning the first game 9-7. But Quibell stormed back to grab the next three games—9-2, 9-3, 9-7—and the win.

Every match these two players have played in intercollegiate competition the past two years has been a thriller. In last season’s matchup against Yale for the Ivy title, the Hall-Quibell contest turned out to be the deciding match as Hall knocked out her younger opponent in four tight games. One week before, Quibell had stunned Hall at the Howe Cup 3-1 as the Bulldogs cut short Harvard’s quest for a second straight national title.

This year the Howe Cup falls after the annual Harvard-Yale meeting, but Hall denies that she will have revenge in mind.

“I’ve played [Quibell] eight times this past year, and maybe 40 times in my life,” Hall said, adding that playing someone that many times made it difficult to get motivated from just one loss.

Weigel, however, believes that there are scores to settle.

“We want to take this and turn it around the same way we did last year, in reverse order,” Weigel said. “This upcoming weekend is even bigger than last weekend—every college team is going to be there.”

Reclaiming the ground lost in the defeat to its Ivy rival will not be easy for the Crimson. Aside from the two wins and Hall’s valiant showing, the other team members were all swept 3-0.

“I feel like we could have won more, that some of those matches were close,” Hall said. “But no one expected us to win, so we’re not overly disappointed that we didn’t.”

—Staff writer Lisa J. Kennelly can be reached at kennell@fas.harvard.edu.