Boston, MA — The match-ups for tomorrow’s division finals have been set, and Trinity and Yale will play for the national team title.
Here is a division-by-division summary of the semifinals:
A Division: The 2011 Potter Cup final will be a rematch of last year’s finalists: Trinity and Yale. Last year Trinity won 6-3 to capture their 12th consecutive national title. The Bantams advanced to this year’s final with a 6-3 win over Rochester. Trinity’s Andres Vargas and Rochester’s Andres Duany duelled back and forth in the number three match on the glass exhibition court. During the time it took Vargas to win in five games, several matches on the other courts finished, and for a while the two teams were tied 2-2. Then Trinity pulled away, though Beni Fischer did notch one more five-game victory for the Yellowjackets at number one.
Yale advanced with a win over Princeton. When the two teams played during the regular season, Yale narrowly edged out Princeton 5-4. The Bulldogs widened the margin this time around, yielding only the top two matches. Three of the matches went to five games, with Yale’s John Fulham defeating David Pena at number 6 (12-14,12-10,4-11,12-10,11-9), Kenneth Chan of Yale hanging on to beat Chris Callis (7-11,11-8,6-11,11-5,11-9), and Princeton’s Dave Letourneau coming back from two down to defeat Naishadh Lalwani (10-12,9-11,11-4,11-4,11-6).
When Trinity and Yale played earlier in the season at Trinity, the Bantams won 7-2.
B Division: Western Ontario and Penn, the top two seeds in the division, will play for the Hoehn Cup. Western Ontario recorded a strong 8-1 win over Brown to march into the finals. Williams put up a strong fight and made Penn work hard to advance; the Quakers ultimately won 6-3. The consolation semifinals in the B Division were some of the most exciting matches of the day. St. Lawrence edged out Navy 5-4, and Middlebury upset Bates 5-4. The Middlebury-Bates match came down to the number 7 match between the Panthers’ Cooper Redpath and the Bobcats’ Dae Ro Lee. With the crowd around their court at least five deep, Lee and Redpath took the match to five games. Redpath hung on to win the final game 11-9, guaranteeing Middlebury their highest national finish ever.
C Division: George Washington and Bowdoin both had to work hard to make it into the Summers Cup final. Top seeded GW faced Wesleyan in the semifinals, and the Cardinals nearly pulled off an upset over the Colonials, falling just short at 4-5. Bowdoin did succeed in knocking off higher-seeded Amherst, coming out ahead in another 5-4 match. Tomorrow’s final may be another close match; when GW and Bowdoin played in early December, the Colonials won 5-4.
D Division: Number one seed Hobart and number two seed Conn both advanced into the Conroy Cup finals with commanding performances. Hobart defeated Georgetown 8-1 and Conn swept Tufts in the semifinals. When the two teams played in late January, Hobart won 8-1, and Conn will be looking to close the gap and overtake the Statesmen. Tomorrow’s final will also mark the end of Hobart coach Carol Weymuller’s collegiate squash coaching career; Weymuller is retiring after this season.
E Division: MIT and Vanderbilt both advanced to the Chaffee Cup semifinals with 6-3 wins, and both made it to the finals with clutch 5-4 wins. Though the two teams haven’t faced each other this season, they’ve both proved to be tenacious, and the final should be interesting. MIT defeated Cal to make it to the finals, and Vanderbilt, who entered the division seeded last, knocked off defending Chaffee Cup champions Kenyon. The 35-36 playoff match will be a rematch from last year’s E Division final between Kenyon and Cal, which Kenyon won by a match.
F Division: Bucknell advanced to the Serues Cup finals with a 7-2 win over Vassar. By defeating the Brewers, the Bison, who were seeded fourth in the division, knocked off the top seed. The F Division matches were played at Harvard this evening, and as of publication the result of the other semifinal between Boston University and Lehigh had yet to be reported.
G Division: The Hawthorn Cup semifinals featured one match between Vermont and Washington University in St. Louis and the other match between Bryant and Ithaca. The results of the semifinals had not been reported as of publication.
Emerging Teams: Emerging Teams play started today, and the five-player teams competed in a round robin. Maryland went undefeated, beating Illinois Springfield 5-0 and defeating NYU 4-1. NYU had a win of their own over Duke, a 4-1 decision, and Duke notched a 4-1 victory over Illinois-Springfield. Tomorrow Maryland and Duke will face off, and NYU and Illinois Springfield will play.
