New Haven, CT — Trinity and Harvard will play for the 2013 Men’s National Team Championship.
A Division (Potter Cup): The two A Division semifinals were played simultaneously this afternoon, and the charged atmosphere at Yale’s Brady Squash Center made it feel like it was the finals. On courts 1, 2, and 3, hosts Yale took on Trinity before a packed house. Yale got on the board quickly thanks to Richard Dodd’s three-game win over Miled Zarazua at number 3. The next match on court 1 was a test of endurance between Yale captain Hywel Robinson and Trinity first-year player Juan Vargas. Vargas outlasted Robinson in the final points of the fifth game. Trinity picked up steam from there, and the Bantams clinched the win before the final flight was over. It took much longer to resolve who would face the Bantams in the championship match. By the time the final flight of matches was on court, Harvard needed just one more individual match to secure a spot in the finals. It looked like the Crimson were a sure thing: after all, defending individual champion Ali Farag was on court, and Farag had yet to drop a collegiate match. His opponent, Princeton senior captain and 2011 individual champion Todd Harrity, had other ideas. After the first two games, Harrity and Farag were tied 1-all. It looked like the match would go the distance, but then Harrity pulled out two consecutive games. Suddenly — improbably — Princeton was back in it. Vivek Dinodia’s three-game win for Princeton over Harvard’s Zeke Scherl at number 7 evened the match score 4-all. The deciding match would be between Harvard’s Gary Power and Princeton’s Dylan Ward at number 4. Ward ran up a two game lead, but the Power took a tension-filled third game and then held off Ward again in a let-filled fourth. The entire match came down to the fifth game, and a crowd ten-deep pressed around court 8 as the B Division semifinal between Dartmouth and Western Ontario began on the surrounding courts. In the end, Power — who had been down 0-2 in games — came back to win 11-7 in the fifth, sending the Crimson into the final. The Cornell-St. Lawrence consolation match was overshadowed by the drama of the semifinals, but it was no less dramatic, as the Saints upset the Big Red 5-4.
B Division (Hoehn Cup): The B Division semifinal between Columbia and Williams began at 3:30 pm and the other semifinal, between Dartmouth and Western Ontario, started at 4 pm.
C Division (Summers Cup): In the consolation semifinals, Amherst had a scare from Connecticut College. The Jeffs held off the Camels 5-4. Drexel turned in an 8-1 win over Hamilton to advance to the consolation finals.
D Division (Conroy Cup): The Colby-Georgetown semifinal was scheduled for noon, and the Bucknell-Stanford semifinal was scheduled for 3 pm.
E Division: (Chaffee Cup): It will be an all-Boston affair in the Chaffee Cup finals. Boston University reached the finals with a victory over Denison. The Terriers swept the bottom five matches to record their second 5-4 win of the tournament. They will face cross-town rivals Boston College in the finals. In the consolations, Washington University in St. Louis defeated Colgate 6-3, while MIT beat the University of Washington 8-1.
F Division (Serues Cup): Top-seeded NYU was tested by a game Northeastern squad. The Huskies won numbers 2 through 5, but NYU took the top spot and the bottom four matches to lock a spot in the Serues Cup final.
G Division (Hawthorn Cup): Charleston will have a shot at the 2013 Hawthorn Cup. The Cougars took down Ithaca 7-2 in the G Division semifinals. In the consolation round robin, Minnesota toppled Illinois Springfield, 6-3, and Notre Dame recorded a 7-2 win over Vassar.
