Squash Falls to Yale But Improves Finish

A loss in the final matchup of the regular season would not seem like a happy ending.

But for Harvard’s No. 5 men’s squash team, an 8-1 loss against No. 2 Yale could not dampen the fact that during a self-proclaimed rebuilding year, the team is still finishing better than last season.

“Any team that was close to us comparatively, we beat,” Crimson coach Satinder Bajwa said. “Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn. All of these teams were very strong, but we didn’t lose.”

In fact for Harvard (5-4, 4-2 Ivy), the only losses of the year have come against teams ranked in the top four, including Saturday’s defeat at the Bulldogs’ Brady Squash Center (12-1, 6-0), which gave Yale sole possession of the Ivy League title.

“I think Yale played the best squash they could have played last Saturday,” Bajwa said. “That may not happen again.”

“When we went to Yale, we went with very high expectations,” said junior Richard Hill, who plays for the Crimson in the No. 2 position. “We thought we could pull off an upset against them and have a shot at a share of the Ivy Title. Unfortunately, the Yale guys played better than us, and that showed.”

But for a Harvard team that finished 3-3 in the Ivy League last year, losing out on the regular-season title is not that bad.

“I think this year has been a rebuilding year,” Bajwa said. “We’ve got a little more depth than last year. We’ve got a lot more character in the three freshmen that came and joined the team. They filled the shoes of some big players that we had last year who graduated.”

One of these freshmen, in fact, provided the closest game of the day. Zeke Scherl, playing in the No. 3 position, lost to his opponent, Aaron Fuchs, in a tight five games.

“Zeke as a freshman has been doing well right up there at No. 3 which is not easy,” Bajwa said. “He has been a game, or sometimes points away from victory, and I think it’s just a matter of a breakthrough. I would like to have seen him win, but the fact that he came so close to winning—he may have turned the corner.”

Scherl won two out of the seven total games won on Saturday. Juniors Hill in the No. 2 position and Eliot Buchanan playing at No. 6 also claimed a set of their own, before each fell, 3-1.

The last three games for the Crimson came from co-captain Colin West, who finished his last regular-season competition for Harvard with another win, beating Yale’s Kenneth Chan by a 3-1 count.

West completed 2010 with eight wins and only one loss, to No. 1 Baset Chaundry from Trinity. For Bajwa, there will again be big shoes to fill for next year’s freshmen with the loss of West and co-captain Frank Cohen.

“We are expecting a very good crop next year, so there’s a very good vibe in terms of how well we are potentially going to do, and how this year has really showed us how well we can challenge the top,” Bajwa said.

Even though the Crimson has confidence in next year’s potential progress, there is still one more team challenge—the College Squash Association National Team Championships next weekend.

“We’ve put in all of the hard work, we are as good as we can be, we can’t get any better, but we can work on more of the mental aspects,” Hill said. “That’s just coming up huge when it matters and when the pressure is on.”

“We are working on closing out some of the games,” Bajwa said. “We were very unlucky losing some close games 11-9, 12-10, 13-11, so we are focusing on finishing each game or set.”

Coming off two losses, Bajwa believes his team will have to take the positives of close play and the mental intensity of being a few points down into next week’s competition.

“We feel that we have every opportunity to go out and play our best and really do well against Princeton,” Bajwa said. “We have very good aspirations. If that confidence is carried on to this Friday, it could be one of those bonuses.”

“The season may be over but we will be heading to the playoffs next weekend with a lot of confidence,” Hill added. “It’s not over yet. We still have a good shot at doing well and finishing on a high note.”

—Staff writer Alex Sopko can be reached at sopko@fas.harvard.edu.