Williamstown, MA — In the span of three weeks, Trinity junior Baset Chaudhry and Princeton senior Mauricio Sanchez gave college squash some of its most exciting matches in recent memory. Their meeting in the finals of the Men’s National Singles Championship, hosted by Williams College, proved to be another thriller.
In their first match-up of the season, the Trinity-Princeton dual match, Sanchez handed Chaudhry his only loss of the season in a tight 3-2 match. A week later, Sanchez came within four points of ending Trinity’s then 201-match winning streak, going up 5-0 over Chaudhry in the fifth in the finals of the Men’s National Team Championships. With the teams tied 4-4 in matches, Chaudhry surged back to win nine unanswered points and clinch Trinity’s eleventh consecutive national title.
Chaudhry, the defending national champion, entered the individual tournament as the top seed. While Chaudhry cruised to the finals, winning all four of his matches by a score of 3-0, Sanchez, the number 2 seed, was pushed by Harvard’s Colin West, who took their semifinal match to five games.
Chaudhry won the first game of the final 9-6, and Sanchez responded by winning the second in tie-breakers, 10-9. The two players then traded games: Chaudhry won the third 9-4 and Sanchez took the fourth 9-5, forcing another five-game match. Chaudhry went up 6-0 to start the fifth, but Sanchez came back to win the next three points. Unlike Chaudhry in the team finals, however, Sanchez couldn’t sustain the run, and Chaudhry won the final game 9-3, taking his second consecutive national title.
Another Trinity player, sophomore Chris Binnie, won the Molloy Cup (B Division) with a close 3-2 victory over Western Ontario’s Chris Hanebury.