New Haven, CT — Bowdoin won the Walker Cup, and William Smith won the Epps Cup.
C Division (Walker Cup): The Bowdoin-Wesleyan C Division championship final was tied 3-all going into the final round of matches. The situation should have felt familiar to the Polar Bears: a day earlier, their match against Hamilton had gone to the final game of the final match. That experience served Bowdoin well. The Polar Bears’ Alden Drake won over the Cardinals’ Grace Zimmerman at number 4 to give Bowdoin a 4-3 edge. On the next court, Bowdoin senior captain Bonnie Cao and Wesleyan sophomore Claire Miller were tied 1-all in the number 7 match. Cao hung on to win a close third game and never looked back. She had won the deciding match the day before on the last points of the fifth game, and this time she didn’t wait around. She won the fourth game decisively, taking the upset victory for Bowdoin. Wesleyan’s Mary Foster won at number 1, taking the final match of the entire tournament. The final score was Bowdoin 5, Wesleyan 4.
D Division (Epps Cup): It was redemption for William Smith. Last season the Herons reached the finals of the Epps Cup, only to fall a match short. This time around the Herons jumped out to a 3-0 lead over Virginia after the first round of matches. Virginia posted two wins in the next round, but William Smith never looked back. The Herons won two more matches in the final round to take the Epps Cup 6-3. In the final tally, four matches were decided 3-0, two matches went to four games, and three matches came down to the fifth game. William Smith captain Courtney Leous and her fellow senior Olivia Beckwith won the two five-gamers that went to the Herons (Virginia’s Tara Simonson won the other five-game match). William Smith last won the D Division title in 2009.
