Crimson Comes Up Short at National Tourney

The Crimson couldn’t dominate either T this weekend—Trinity or the center of the court.

The fifth-ranked Harvard men’s squash team’s aspirations to bring home the CSA National Team Championship were crushed by unassailable No. 1 Trinity on Saturday. After upsetting No. 4 Cornell the day before, the Crimson (7-6, 3-3 Ivy league matches) was absolutely no match for the Bantams. Harvard then wrapped up its trip to Princeton, N.J. with a loss against No. 6 Rochester yesterday afternoon in a consolation match that left Harvard just shy of third place, but not disappointed.

“I feel like we had a great weekend,” captain Verdi DeSesa said. “We beat our ranking coming in, which is what we were looking to do.”

NO. 6 ROCHESTER 7, HARVARD 2

Rochester (12-6) was vengeful coming into the match, with a 5-4 December loss against the Crimson still vivid in their minds. The Yellowjackets got the last laugh, though, triumphing over Harvard to claim third place.

Junior Colin West finished a strong weekend with a 9-1, 9-4, 9-0 drubbing of Rochester’s Jim Bristow, and sophomore Richard Hill earned an additional win for the Crimson, but the rest of the lineup faltered against the Yellowjackets.

Senior Ned Reeves overcame a two-game deficit against Yohay Wakabayashi to even the match with a particularly strong 9-1 fourth set, but could not sustain the momentum, falling 9-6 in the fifth.

Junior Franklin Cohen also went the distance, giving Joseph Chapman all he could handle, but could not top the Yellowjacket in five sets.

With the remaining contests finishing 3-0, Harvard could not muster a comeback, settling for fourth place.

No. 1 TRINITY 9, HARVARD 0

The Crimson knew it had to give it its all to beat the Bantams, but Trinity (19-0) proved why they have been national champions for a decade. The Bantams had not tasted defeat in 200 squash matches going into the match against Harvard—the longest win streak for any collegiate sport—and easily captured win 201.

“Trinity is an unstoppable force right now,” said DiSesa of the eventual national champions. “We know they have a lot of great players, but a lot of us have the ability to play with them, so this is the matchup we wanted.”

Trinity swept the Crimson in what seemed like lopsided play. The Bantams asserted their supremacy with 3-0 victories in seven of nine matches.

The day started off with Harvard senior Niko Hrdy challenging Trinity’s Manek Mathur in a close contest, 9-7. Things turned bad, though, as Mathur kept Hrdy scoreless in the next two games to give Trinity its first win.

Hill was only one of two Crimson competitors to win a game against Trinity, taking the third set from Supreet Singh. Singh had won the first game easily, 9-1, and struggled to keep Hill off in the second, 9-7, before dropping one to him, 9-1. But Singh bounced back and sealed the match with a 9-3 fourth set.

Reeves traded games with Chris Binnie before the Bantam’s ninth seed put the game away (9-3, 3-9, 9-3, 9-5). The Crimson did not fare any better after Reeves’ loss, failing to provide much competition for Trinity.

Eliot Buchanan challenged the Bantam’s Parth Sharma in the second set in a heated 10-8 contest, but the Crimson sophomore couldn’t overtake Sharma and fell 3-0. The rest of the team lost in the same manner, including the Crimson’s No. 1 player, West, who was the only Harvard competitor to beat the Bantams earlier this month. Trinity’s Baset Chaudhry fended off West in the first game, 9-6, before he cruised to easy victories in the next two games, 9-2 and 9-4.

HARVARD 5, CORNELL 4

The Crimson came into the match seeking to avail their first loss of the season when they dropped a road contest against the Big Red in December, 6-3. It appeared that Harvard was taking care of business with an impressive start to the tournament. The Crimson swept the first three matches, led by dominant performances by Hrdy, Hill, and Reeves. All three defeated their opponents 3-0 in their contests.

But Cornell wasn’t ready to give up, and the Big Red’s Thomas Spettigue won against sophomore J. Reed Endresen, 3-1. Buchanan responded for the Crimson with another commanding 3-0 win, though the first two games were highly contested, until Buchanan overcame Cornell’s David Hilton 9-2 in the third set.

The next three matches mirrored the beginning, with the Big Red taking three straight. Harvard freshman William Ahmed, DiSesa, and junior Franklin Cohen all dropped their contests 3-0, setting up a tense encounter in the No. 1 slot between the Crimson’s West and Will Hartigan.

West displayed his finesse by beating Hartigan in three games, capping a brilliant performance with a shutout (9-4, 9-4, 9-0).

“Cornell was a big match for us,” Cohen said. “We had to beat them [to move on] and it was very exciting, especially given the lineup they brought.”

Cohen hinted that the Big Red rearranged their order to better its odds, bu t Cornell could not overcome a determined Crimson squad.