Vassar: 2010 – 2011 Women’s College Squash Season Preview

Vassar: 2010 – 2011 Women’s College Squash Season Preview

Poughkeepsie, NY — Vassar had a championship trifecta within reach last season: the Brewers won their second consecutive Liberty League crown and made it to the Seven Sisters and Walker Cup finals. Because there are currently only three varsity women’s teams competing in the Liberty League, there will be a round robin rather than a championship event this year. However, the Seven Sisters and Walker Cup championships are still up for grabs, and the Brewers have their sights on both.

The team has graduated four seniors: Olivia Mak, who played number 8 last season, and tri-captains Hope Blinkoff, Emilie Kraft, and Caitlin Ly, who all earned All-Liberty League honors, with Kraft being named Liberty League Player of the Year. Both Blinkoff and Ly have continued to be involved with squash post-graduation. Blinkoff has taken a position with SquashWise in Baltimore, and Ly, who will be attending law school in Boston, is volunteering at SquashBusters.

Though the team has lost four players, they will be gaining four more. Senior Elizabeth Anderson, who has played varsity tennis at Vassar for three years and has played squash recreationally, will be joining the squad. Sophomore Amanda Scott comes to the team with four years of varsity high school squash experience and should play in the middle of the ladder. First years Willow Thompson and Lisa Evans will also bring multiple years of squash experience with them and should add depth to the ladder.

The Brewers will be led by co-captains Nina Punukollu, a junior who played number 9 last season, and senior Kristine Bell, who played behind Kraft at number 2. Four of the six varsity returners earned league honors, with Meg Taylor being named to the Seven Sisters team and Bell, Alexa Lichtenstein, and Libby Pei receiving Liberty League honors. Pei was also named 2009-2010 Liberty League Rookie of the Year, and the Vassar coaching staff also received Liberty League recognition.

In addition to their successes on court last season, the Vassar players were involved with VAST Plus. VAST (Vassar After School Tutoring) is a program in which Vassar student tutor and mentor students from Poughkeepsie Middle School, and VAST Plus has an extracurricular component where students are introduced to a number of activities, including film making, digital photography, basketball, and squash.

Looking ahead to this season, the Vassar team has a number of goals. The team wants to develop fitness and technical skills in the preseason along with strategy and confidence throughout season, laying the foundation for their competitive goals. In particular, the team wants to reverse 5-4 losses to Wesleyan, Colby, and GWU, the team they faced in the 2010 Walker Cup finals.  Vassar also hopes to finish high enough in the national rankings to send two automatic entries to the Individual Championships at the end of the season.

How the team progresses towards these goals will depend on the strength of Vassar’s opponents and how their own returners and first-year players stack up, head coach Jane Parker acknowledges. “Nevertheless,” she says, “We have everything to play for and are excited to get going again in September.”

2009-2010 SEASON RECAP

Season Record: 9-7
Final Ranking: 18
Team Championships/Conference: 18th Over All; 2nd in Walker Cup (C Division); Liberty League
Champions

2010-2011 SEASON PREVIEW

Program Status: Varsity

Head Coach: Jane Parker (Vassar recognized as Liberty League Coaching Staff of the Year)

Returning Players from Team Championships: Kristine Bell (2; Liberty League Team); Jill Levine (10);
Alexa Lichtenstein (7; Seven Sisters Team); Libby Pei (4; Liberty League Team; Liberty League Rookie
of the Year); Nina Punukollu (9); Meg Taylor (6; Seven Sisters Team; studying abroad fall 2010)

Returning to team from 2009-10 squad: Avery Siciliano ’13, Katie Cornish ’12 (studying abroad fall 2010), Sanam Khanna ‘13, Caroline Symons ’13.

Graduates on Last Season’s Team Championships Roster: Hope Blinkoff (5; Liberty League Team; 2009-
2010 Captain); Emilie Kraft (1; Liberty League Team; Liberty League Player of the Year; 2009-2010
Captain); Caitlin Ly (3; Liberty League Team; 2009-2010 Captain); Olivia Mak (8)

Additions to the 2010-2011 Roster:

  • Expected to play in the middle 3: Amanda Scott and Willow Thompson
  • Expected to play in the bottom 3: Elizabeth Anderson and Lisa Evans

Captains: Kristine Bell and Nina Punukollu

Team Goals: Develop fitness and technical skills in pre-season along with strategy and confidence throughout season; win Seven Sisters; win Walker Cup (“C” Division) or compete for the Kurtz Cup (“B” Division); earn high enough team ranking to have two automatic qualifications for CSA Individuals

Key matches: Colby, Columbia, GWU, Northeastern, Saint Lawrence, Wesleyan, and William Smith

To read other team previews, please visit the 2010 – 2011 College Squash Preview Page.

Men's 2024-25 Scholar Athlete Recipients

Avi Agarwal (Princeton University)
Zain Ahmed (Princeton University)
Alex Akbari (Williams College)
Robert Albani (MIT)
Roger Alber Baddour (University of Pennsylvania)
Alexis Ballo (Middlebury College)
Lars Barkman (MIT)
Arav Bhagwati (Yale University)
Atreyus Bhavsar (Hamilton College)
Oliver Bikhazi-Green (St. Lawrence University)
Dean Brooker (St. Lawrence University)
Quintin Campbell (Dartmouth College)
Sebastian Campos (Colby College)
Tad Carney (Yale University)
David Costales (Harvard University)
Hao Cui (University of Pennsylvania)
Marco DiFilippo (Franklin & Marshall College)
Karim Elbarbary (University of Virginia)
Youssef Ezzo (Tufts University)
Garret Fantini (Haverford College)
Nathan Feinstein (Middlebury College)
Juan Felipe Hernandez (Denison University)
Noah Fish (Connecticut College)
Max Forster (Yale University)
Denis Gilevskiy (Harvard University)
Adam Goad (Columbia University)
Max Good (Bates College)
Abhimanyu Gupta (Amherst College)
Francis Evan Hajek (University of Virginia)
Tate Harms (Harvard University)
Pierce Henderson (Williams College)
Grady Herbert (Amherst College)
Zachary Idinopulos (Wesleyan University)
Nikhil Ismail (Yale University)
Rohan Iyer (Cornell University)
Thomas (Jack) Winston (Bowdoin College)
Aaryaman Jaising (Haverford College)
Kian Kardestuncer (Middlebury College)
Noah Katzer (Franklin & Marshall College)
Warren Klein (Dartmouth College)
Jacob Koeppel (University of Rochester)
Theo Kogan (Middlebury College)
Gordon Lam (Princeton University)
Asher Leavy (Williams College)
Jack Lee (Williams College)
Aaron Liang (Cornell University)
Will Lichstein (Middlebury College)
William "Mac" Aube (Dartmouth College)
Crispin McCarthy (Fordham University)
Andrew Minnis (Williams College)
Youssif Mostafa (Colby College)
Artemy Mukhin (Bard College)
Simon Muller (Hamilton College)
Zacharias Nam (Columbia University)
Jacob Nathan (Bard College)
Mitav Nayak (MIT)
Petr Nohel (University of Virginia)
William Okurowski (Amherst College)
Alexander Orr (Naval Academy)
Maxwell Orr (Yale University)
Jeh Pandole (Cornell University)
Henry Pelletier (Connecticut College)
Lucas Piller (Denison University)
Philip Hyun Su Price (MIT)
Rohan Ray (Dartmouth College)
Aidan Ray (Dickinson College)
Thomas Rosini (Princeton University)
William Sarbinowski (Cornell University)
Arnaav Sareen (Cornell University)
Kai Schinaman (Haverford College)
Christian Shah (Dartmouth College)
Jacob Shulman (Hamilton College)
Franklyn Smith (Columbia University)
Joe Smythe (Dickinson College)
Federico Sosa (Princeton University)
Lucas Spiro (Naval Academy)
Nicholas Spizzirri (University of Pennsylvania)
Conner Stoltz (Harvard University)
Rafay Syed (Williams College)
Evann Tan (Franklin & Marshall College)
Kerwin Teh (Tufts University)
John Paul Tew (University of Virginia)
Rana Thakkar (Dartmouth College)
Noah Tunis (Haverford College)
Rohan Valia (Tufts University)
Bennett Van Liew (Fordham University)
Roberto Vega (Hobart College)
Matthew Wang (Naval Academy)
Collin Wen (MIT)
Tom Whiteley (University of Rochester)
Nick Wilkinson (Bowdoin College)
Merritt Wurts (Yale University)
Ethan Yan (Wesleyan University)
Omar Zakaria (University of Rochester)

Women's 2024-25 Scholar Athlete Recipients

Alysa Ali (Cornell University)
Aanya Anand (Wesleyan University)
Mira Bakshi (Wesleyan University)
Charlotte Bell (Princeton University)
Meagan Best (University of Virginia)
Sydney Bramen (Georgetown University)
Nora Brandt (Williams College)
Alex Brown (Amherst College)
Aleezah Burhan (Tufts University)
Lindsey Burnham (Middlebury College)
Fabiola Cabello (Trinity College)
Emma Carney (Harvard University)
Molly Chadwick (Princeton University)
Chelsea Cho (Dartmouth College)
Thenuri De Silva (Bard College)
Jaclyn Dichter (Wesleyan University)
Vharshamithraa Diniesh (Tufts University)
Habiba Eldafrawy (Harvard University)
Ainsley Ellison (Connecticut College)
Maureen Foley (University of Virginia)
Catherine Fortin (Haverford College)
Zarine Gidwaney (Franklin & Marshall College)
Nasreen Hashmi (University of Virginia)
Katherine Hennessy (Georgetown University)
Abby Holding (Middlebury College)
Meherin Hossain (Bard College)
Aalia Husain (Georgetown University)
Riddhi Joshi (Tufts University)
Emma Kahle (St. Lawrence University)
Mira Karande (Bowdoin College)
Gurlin Kaur (Franklin & Marshall College)
Theresa Kay (Williams College)
Zaynab Khan (Trinity College)
Aishwarya Khubchandani (Cornell University)
Josephine Klein (Princeton University)
Gainsley Korengold (Hamilton College)
Christy Tin Yan Lau (Yale University)
Virginia Lawrence (Denison University)
Aubrey Lennon (Dartmouth College)
Katherine Manderlink (Denison University)
Madeleine Martin (St. Lawrence University)
Cate Moll (Dickinson College)
Nieve Monderer (Tufts University)
Saran Nghiem (Harvard University)
Anna O'Connor (Dickinson College)
Mackenzie O'Shea (Colby College)
Lujan Palacios (Trinity College)
Tanmai Pathak (Amherst College)
Natasha Pensler (University of Pennsylvania)
Abbie Peterson (Middlebury College)
Isabella Ronda (Middlebury College)
Isabel Schumacher (Connecticut College)
Amira Singh (Harvard University)
Ariana Solecki (Haverford College)
Amanda Solecki (Williams College)
India Spencer (Colby College)
Meghna Sreedhar (Yale University)
Molly Stoltz (Harvard University)
Sarah Stonestreet (Hamilton College)
Leandra Sze (Wesleyan University)
Lina Sherif Tammam (University of Virginia)
Whitney Taylor (Yale University)
Isabelle Tilney-Sandberg (Amherst College)
Emma Kate Watts-Roy (Bowdoin College)
Darcy Weber (Bowdoin College)
Brecon Welch (Harvard University)

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