Grigg Downs Rival in Victory

Faced with a Dartmouth rival she has played dozens of time since childhood, Harvard women’s squash captain Kyla Grigg showed no mercy. The rest of the team followed her lead.

The Crimson (3-0, 2-0 Ivy) handily defeated the Big Green last night at the Murr Center, losing only four games en route to an 8-1 victory.

“I thought we were great tonight. Everyone had great energy,” Grigg said. “I was really impressed with everyone.”

Grigg first encountered fellow Canadian Ashley Malenchak at the age of 11 in national tournaments. Now matched up in the Ivy League, Grigg had little trouble with her longtime rival in a 9-2, 9-3, 9-4 victory.

The only match the Crimson lost proved the most exciting of the night. Competing in the seventh spot for the team, freshman Johanna Snyder won the first two games of her match, but allowed freshman opponent Libbey Brown to dig herself out of the hole and tie the match at two games apiece.

With all of other players having already finished their matches and with the men’s match nearly complete, the entirety of the Harvard and Dartmouth teams crowded around to watch the culmination of Snyder’s match. Crimson assistant coach Mohammad Ayaz had to insist that the players quiet down their screaming before the match could continue.

Snyder quickly fell behind 6-1—further hushing the crowd—before rallying to tie the score at 6-6. Brown then won the last three points of the match for a 9-6 victory in the fifth and final game.

Head coach Satinder Bajwa saw the defeat as preparation for the murderer’s row of teams Harvard will face after returning from winter vacation.

“We try to find some energy out of these matches that we know we’re going to win. Today, Johanna lost a match 3-2 when she let a two game lead slip away,” Bajwa said. We hope that later in the season, when it really counts, having something like that will give us something to focus on.”

Apart from Snyder, the team faced little difficulty in slicing its way to victory. In addition to Grigg, junior Jennifer Blumberg, junior Suipriya Balsekar, senior Audrey Duboc, senior Lydia Williams, freshman Sandra Mumanachit, and freshman Charlene Neo all swept their matches 3-0. Freshman Katherine O’Donnell lost a single game before winning on a drop shot.

However, the going will soon be much tougher. In an eight-day stretch in February, the Crimson will face Penn, Princeton, and Yale—a threesome expected to contend with Harvard for the Ivy League title. In addition, the Crimson will face the Trinity, a perennial contender for the national championship. Preseason rankings placed all four of these teams above Harvard.

“There are usually three strong teams and this year there are five,” Grigg said. “If we’re going to win, this would be the most exciting year to do it.”