New Haven, CT — There was one last major upset on the first day of the 2013 Women’s National Team Championships. Fifteenth-ranked Bates knocked out tenth-ranked Williams to move to the B Division semifinals.
A Division (Howe Cup): Princeton and Trinity will play in one A Division semifinal tomorrow, and Harvard and Penn will play in the other.
B Division (Kurtz Cup): What a difference of few weeks makes. When Williams and Bates played a month ago, the Ephs took the match 6-3. They came into this weekend seeded second in the B Division and ranked tenth overall, while Bates was seeded seventh and ranked fifteenth. After today’s first flight of matches, Bates had a slight lead with wins at numbers 9 and 3, while Williams got on the board with a win at 6. The same pattern held true for the next set of matches: Bates won at the top (numbers 2 and 8), and Williams won in the middle (number 5). With a 4-2 lead, the Bobcats only had to win one match in the final flight, and they did at the top. Williams had wins at 4 and 7 to keep the score close, but it was too late. Bates advanced with the 5-4 win. They will face Middlebury in the semifinals; the Panthers glided into the next round by shutting out F&M. The other semifinal will feature Dartmouth and Columbia. In the consolation bracket, Amherst will play George Washington, and Williams will play F&M.
C Division (Walker Cup): The C Division semifinal match-ups will be Wesleyan versus Drexel and Hamilton versus Bowdoin.
D Division (Epps Cup): In the D Division semifinals, Boston College and Virginia will square off in one side of the draw, and William Smith and St. Lawrence will meet in the other.
E Division: Some scores for the E Division had yet to be reported at the time of publication. The E Division consists of two three-team round robins. The first-place teams in each round robin will play for the E Division title on Sunday. Haverford College is in the running for the E Division title. The Fords defeated Smith College 8-1 this evening in a contest that included two five-game matches. The other E Division match was Tufts versus Rochester.
Emerging Teams: Scores for the Emerging Teams matches had yet to be reported at the time of publication. Washington University in St. Louis played Notre Dame, and Vanderbilt played Minnesota.
