New Haven, CT — Harvard and Trinity will play for the 2013 Women’s National Team Championship. Dartmouth will play Bates for the B Division title, and Tufts and Haverford will vie for the E Division title.
A Division (Howe Cup): Harvard will defend their national title tomorrow, but they almost didn’t get the chance to. Penn did everything they could to upend the second-seeded Crimson. Harvard pulled out to an early lead, going up 3-1 in matches. On court 3, Penn’s Haidi Lala and Harvard’s Michelle Gemmell put on a spectacular show in the first game. The two first-year players dueled back and forth, with Lala finally clinching at 20-18. As the action unfolded on court 3, Penn began to stage a comeback. The Quakers’ Courtney Jones outlasted the Crimson’s Julianne Chu in five games in the number 8 match, and the Quakers’ Yan Xin defeated Harvard’s Laura Gemmell 3-2. Suddenly team match was tied 3-all. All eyes turned back to court 3, where Lala had just forced a fifth game. She gave it all in the last game — at one point diving, scrambling up, diving again, and recovering to win the ball — but Michelle Gemmell proved too strong in the end, winning 3-2. Harvard’s Amanda Sobhy won in three over Penn’s Nabilla Ariffin at number 1, and Harvard was in the final. Harvard will play Trinity for the 2013 Women’s National Team Championship. Cornell will play Yale in the consolation final. For the past few seasons, Cornell and Stanford have met in the consolation semifinals, and the match is always close. Today’s was no different, but Cornell managed the clinch the 5-4 victory before the final match went on court.
B Division (Kurtz Cup): Bates is on fire. The Bobcats, who came into the tournament seeded fifteenth, upset Williams 5-4 last night. Today they did it again, knocking off Middlebury, the eleventh seed. Bates claimed the top three matches, plus numbers 5, 8, and 9. Middlebury won at numbers 4, 6, and 7. Five of the matches were decided in three games, three went to four games, and the number 9 match between Bates’ Samantha Matos and Middlebury’s Katie Dewey was a marathon five-gamer, which Matos came from behind to win. Bates will face Dartmouth in the finals tomorrow. On paper, it looks like top-seeded Dartmouth is the favorite, but taking on higher seeded teams doesn’t seem to faze Bates in the least. Williams swept F&M to make it into the consolation finals, where they will face George Washington.
C Division (Walker Cup): Wesleyan and Bowdoin will play for the Walker Cup.
D Division (Epps Cup): William Smith and Virginia will play for the Epps Cup.
E Division: Haverford took on NYU and Tufts played Cal this evening. Matches were still underway as of the time of publication. UPDATE: Tufts swept Cal 9-0. The victory, combined with the Jumbos’ 8-1 win over Rochester on Friday, makes Tufts the winner of round robin pool 1. The Jumbos will play Haverford for the E Division title. The Fords advanced to the title match with a 6-3 win over NYU; Haverford defeated Smith 8-1 on Friday. The two second place teams in each round robin — Cal and Smith — will play tomorrow, and Rochester and NYU, the two third-place teams, will also face off.
Emerging Teams Division: This evening’s match-ups were Vanderbilt versus Washington University and Notre Dame versus Minnesota. Results had not come in as of publication.
