The matchups are now released for the 46th college women’s team nationals, to be hosted at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology February 16-18, 2018. All draws and live coverage throughout the weekend are available at csasquash.com/womensnationals2018.
42 teams from around the country will attend the championships and compete across five divisions: The Howe Cup (teams ranked No. 1-8)—which determines the national team champion; Kurtz Cup (9-16), Walker Cup (17-24); Epps Cup (25-32); and E Division (33-42).
Harvard enters the Howe Cup as the heavy favorite playing on their home courts. The Crimson are coming off an undefeated regular season and are currently unbeaten in 50 consecutive matches; the title would be Harvard’s fourth in a row and sixth over the last seven seasons. They will face No. 8 Cornell in the quarterfinals.
Harvard has captured 17 Howe Cups, a number equaled only by No. 2 seed Princeton. The Tigers have only one loss on the season, falling 8-1 to Harvard on February 3. Princeton will face perennial rival Penn in the quarterfinals; Penn made a run to the Howe Cup finals in 2017. The winner of Princeton/Penn will await either No. 3 Trinity or No. 6 Columbia in the semifinals. On the top half of the draw alongside Harvard and Cornell, No. 4 Stanford will face No. 5 Yale, whom the Cardinals beat in a tightly-contested 6-3 match in January.
In the Kurtz Cup, Drexel enters at the top seed, followed by Dartmouth in the second position. In the 2017 Kurtz Cup final, Dartmouth snuck out a narrow win 5-4 over Drexel that included a comeback from 2-0 games down at the four position in the final round of matches—a result that the Dragons will look to reverse in 2018.
The Walker Cup is led by Dickinson in only its fourth year as a varsity program. Tufts, under new head coach Joe Raho, enters seeded second. Directly behind Tufts is a resurgent Bates team, which has posted an impressive set of recent results (including two wins over Tufts) after a challenging first half of the season.
The Epps Cup will be contested by teams including top seed Bowdoin and two seed William Smith. California Berkeley and Georgetown—both club programs—crack their way into the Epps, a first for the Berkeley team.
The E Division is made up of primarily club programs with Boston College getting the nod as top seed. The Bard women will make their debut appearance in the team championships to cap off their inaugural year as a varsity program, entering as the five seed.
Follow the action all weekend at csasquash.com/womensnationals2018, including streaming of matches, draws, live scoring through Club Locker, match reporting and images throughout the event. Live scoring through Club Locker is available free on club locker for all users, just sign in with an existing US Squash account, or create a new one at no cost.
