Men's Squash Clinches Share of Ivy Title

The No. 2 Harvard men’s squash team took on the No. 3 Yale team in New Haven, CT. on Friday night for a win that secured at least a share of the Ivy League title.

In five of its six wins that night, the Crimson (13-0, 6-0 Ivy) defeated its Bulldog opponents in three games. Yale (13-2, 5-1) notched three wins in the middle of the ladder.

“The men won 6-3 at the Ivy Scrimmage,” coach Michael Way said. “So it was an identical score for this match. We play Brown this week, but I think we have at least one hand on the trophy, for sure.”

At the No. 4 spot, Harvard’s co-captain Gary Power lost in four games to the Bulldogs’ Thomas Dembinski. Although Power had a strong third game and beat Dembinski by 10 points, he was unable to come back strong enough to secure a win. This is the first match this season that Power has lost so far.

The other two losses were matches played at the fifth and sixth seed. Senior Nigel Koh lost to his opponent, Kah Wah Cheong, dropping three straight games after having won the first. Freshman Bryan Koh’s match went to five games yet again, this time against Yale’s Liam McClintock. Koh’s fifth game ended in a 12-10 loss.

“I think the good thing is that the six games we won, we won almost all of them in three games,” senior Ali Farag said. “So if we play them again I don’t see any of us losing any of them, hopefully. The three we lost we lost in four or five games, so [they] can be converted to wins if we work really hard.”

At the bottom of the ladder, sophomore Nicholas Hopcroft bested Charlie Wyatt in three games to win the number seven match. The number eight seed, senior Thomas Mullaney also won in three, shutting out Yale’s Eric Caine.

“When players don’t volley, it’s usually because they’re nervous,” Way said. “So you have to address the heads first, and then you can address the tactics. If you never address the heads, you can’t reach the tactics.”

Junior Tyler Olson had a tougher match, dropping the third game to the Bulldogs’ Joseph Roberts before coming back strong in the fourth game to tally another win for the Crimson in the ninth position. Olson holds the team record for wins this season with 12 and carries a 12-0 personal record.

“It’s an individual sport,” Way said. “It’s about getting [the team] in the right headspace and recognizing what they need to do better than the last match, so from Trinity we’ve made our adjustments. Then, during the match, it’s a different strategy for each kid.”

Farag won his match in three games against Yale’s top player, Neil Martin. Farag has 11 wins this season, and is the only other team member to have won all his matches other than Olson.

“For myself, my match was pretty comfortably won,” Farag said. “I think Neil Martin is a good player, but I won in three games and I was happy with the way I played.”

In the number two and three spots, co-captain Brandon McLaughlin and freshman Dylan Murray swept their matches in three games, as well. McLaughlin defeated the Bulldogs’ Sam Fenwich, and gave up only 15 points total in three games. The wins helped Harvard to break Yale’s six-game winning streak.

“It’s not really what we focus on during the game as much as making the adjustments that we make after each match that we play in,” Way said. “So for every match that we play in, we review the videos, especially those who struggle. Win or lose we always look at the video, and we make the adjustments and we work on those and their mental state as well.”

The Crimson’s own 13-game winning streak sets the program’s record for a season. As of now, the squad is guaranteed at least a part of the Ivy League title.

“After winning on Tuesday [against Trinity], I was afraid that everyone would be overconfident and take this match too lightly,” Farag said. “However, I don’t know think that happened to anyone on the team. They all had the right attitude and they wanted to, of course, get the job done.”

—Crimson staff writer Emily T. Wang can be reached at emilywang@college.harvard.edu.