Princeton, NJ — It was a busy first day at the Men’s National Team Championships, and play will be continuing into the late evening.
Potter Cup (A Division): Tournament main site hosts Princeton will face Cornell in the semifinals tomorrow. The Tigers advanced with a strong 8-1 win over Dartmouth. The Big Green will square off against Yale in the consolation bracket; the Bulldogs were upset by Cornell earlier in the day.
Harvard advanced to the other A Division semifinal, but Rochester did not give way easily. While the Crimson lept to an early lead, the Yellowjackets kept the match close, pushing many matches to four and five games. The final score was Harvard 6, Rochester 3. Harvard will play defending national champions Trinity tomorrow; Trinity advanced with an 8-1 win over F&M.
Hoehn Cup (B Division): The 9th-16th spots in the rankings have been fluid all season, and not surprisingly there was an upset in the first round: Columbia upended the Naval Academy 5-4. Columbia will face Williams in the semis, while the team Williams defeated 7-2 — Brown University — will play Navy in the consolations. In the other half of the bracket, Penn and St. Lawrence will play tomorrow in the semis, and Bates and Middlebury will play in the consolations. The Bobcats and the Panthers have played twice over the last two weeks, and both times Middlebury won 6-3.
Summers Cup (C Division): Stanford is the only club team to compete in the C Division, making the Cardinal the highest-ranked club team in the nation. Stanford had a tough assignment in the first round, facing top division seeds George Washington. The Colonials advanced with a commanding 8-1 win over Stanford. GW will play Bowdoin in one semi, and Hamilton and Colby will play in the other. In the consolation bracket, Stanford will face Connecticut College, and Wesleyan will play Amherst.
Conroy Cup (D Division): Georgetown held off Drexel, the CSA’s newest varsity program, to advance to the D Division semifinals. The Dragons won the top three spots and a marathon five-gamer at #7, but the Hoyas’ depth helped them win in the middle and bottom of the ladder, securing a 5-4 win.
The other Conroy Cup matches were more uneven. Tufts and Hobart both advanced with 8-1 wins over MIT and Colgate, respectively. Northeastern defeated Johns Hopkins 7-2 to move into the next round of the main draw, where they will play Hobart. Tufts and Georgetown will play in the other semifinal. The consolation match-ups are Drexel versus MIT and Hopkins versus Colgate.
Chaffee Cup (E Division): The opening round pairings in the Chaffee Cup were Boston College-Vassar, Cal Berkeley-Kenyon, Denison-University of Washington, and Bucknell-Washington University in St. Louis. These teams were playing in the evening at Penn, one of the other tournament sites, and scores were not in at the time of publication. UPDATE: BC defeated Vassar 7-2, Cal defeated Kenyon 8-1, Denison defeated Washington 8-1, and Bucknell swept Washington in St. Louis 9-0.
Serues Cup (F Division): Second-seeded Haverford advanced to the semifinals with a decisive 9-0 win over Bryant. Tomorrow Haverford will face the winner of the Fordham-Illinois Champaign match. The other semifinal match will feature the winner of Lehigh-Virginia versus the winner of Swarthmore-Vanderbilt. UPDATE: Swarthmore defeated Vanderbilt 5-4 to move into the semifinals. Virginia beat Lehigh 9-0, and Illinois Champaign defeated Fordham 8-1.
Hawthorn Cup (G Division): Eleven teams are competing in the Hawthorn Cup, and the division started with a play-in round. Vermont advanced to the main draw with a 6-3 win over USC; the Catamounts were scheduled to play Sewanee in the next round tonight. UPDATE: Sewanee defeated Vermont 6-3.
Notre Dame also won their play-in match, defeating Illinois Springfield 7-2. The Fighting Irish will play NYU tomorrow morning. Northwestern defeated Siena 6-3 and will play Boston University in the main draw. Ithaca and Charleston earned byes into the main draw and were scheduled to play each other this evening. UPDATE: Charleston defeated Ithaca 8-1.
Siena, Notre Dame, and USC will now compete against each other in a round robin.
Emerging Teams: Play in the five-player Emerging Teams Division starts Saturday morning. The teams participating in this division are Bard, Duke, Maryland, and Minnesota, and they will compete in a round robin.
