New Haven, CT — The semifinals for the A, C, and D Divisions are set following this afternoon’s matches.
A Division (Howe Cup): In the first set of A Division matches, Harvard advanced to the semifinals with a 9-0 win over Stanford. Three of the nine matches went to four games, and the rest were decided 3-0. The second-seeded Crimson will face third-seeded Penn in the semifinals. The Quakers advanced thanks to an 8-1 win over Cornell. The Big Red’s lone win came from senior Jaime Laird, a five-gamer over Penn senior Rachael Goh. The other semifinal will feature top-seeded Princeton versus Trinity, the fourth seed. Princeton swept Brown, 9-0, in the opening round. Trinity had a more challenging route to the semis. The Bantams faced Yale, a team they had narrowly beat 5-4 playing at home in Hartford during the regular season.This time Yale had home court advantage, and the first flight of matches was closely contested. But Trinity clinched early to prevent another nail-biter, eventually winning 7-2. All the top seeds in the division advanced to the semifinals. The consolation match-ups will be Yale versus Brown and Cornell versus Stanford.
B Division (Kurtz Cup): The first semifinal in the B Division will be an all-Ivy affair. Dartmouth, the top seed, advanced with a convincing win over Amherst, the number eight seed. The other team to advance to the semifinals was Columbia, who played George Washington. The two teams had played during the regular season at a round robin at Yale, and Columbia had won that meeting 8-1. The venue was the same today and so was the result: Columbia won again, 8-1. The other B Division matches (Williams versus Bates and Middlebury versus F&M) went on at 4 pm.
C Division (Walker Cup): Hamilton, the number 2 seed in the division, turned in a dominant performance against seventh-seeded Connecticut College to move on to the C Division semifinals. The Continentals defeated the Camels 9-0. Hamilton will face third-seeded Bowdoin in the semifinals. The Polar Bears advanced with a victory over Colby. This was the second time this season the two teams faced each other, and Bowdoin won by a slightly larger margin — 8-1 — than in January (7-2). Wesleyan and Drexel advanced to the other semifinal earlier this morning. The consolation semis will feature two NESCAC schools (Colby versus Connecticut College) and two Seven Sisters schools (Mount Holyoke versus Wellesley).
D Division (Epps Cup): One of the D Division semifinals will be a showdown of Liberty League schools. St. Lawrence, the third seed in the division, moved to the next round with a 7-2 win over Georgetown. The match looked like it would be a close one after the first flight of matches, but St. Lawrence steadily pulled away from the Hoyas during the second and third flights. St. Lawrence will play William Smith in the semifinals. The Herons faced another Liberty League school, Vassar, in the first round. When the two teams met in December, the Herons won 6-3. This time around, the end result was still in William Smith’s favor and the score was 7-2. BC and Virginia will play in the other semifinal, and the consolation match-ups will be Vassar-Georgetown and Northeastern-Johns Hopkins.
E Division: The first E Division matches began at 4 pm: Tufts versus Rochester and Haverford versus Smith.
Emerging Teams: The first Emerging Teams matches are scheduled for 5:15 pm: Washington University in St. Louis versus Notre Dame and Minnesota versus Vanderbilt.
