The second portion of the college squash regular season ramps up dramatically this weekend with many teams getting their first taste of competitive action in 2019. Several matches among conference foes headline this weekend’s contests with several closely ranked match-ups.
Matches abound across New England with Amherst, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Middlebury, St. Lawrence, Williams, and Yale all hosting multiple contests between Friday and Sunday.
Harvard hosts the most matches over the three days. Besides the regular Ivy League weekend slate with Cornell and Columbia coming to town, Harvard will be the second home for the Stanford women, who play four matches in three days, and both of Tufts’s teams in their meeting with Conn College on Sunday.
Based on the rankings, the action at Harvard should be enticing all weekend. The No. 3 Columbia men ended No. 2 Harvard’s run of Ivy League championships last season in New York City, and although Harvard exacted some revenge in their Potter Trophy semifinal match, the Crimson will be eager to stake their claim early with victories over Cornell and then Columbia. Stanford, once again, has a harrowing slate of matches, with three of their four contests against Top-8 opponents: No. 1 Harvard, No. 2 Trinity, and No. 7 Columbia.
The teams from Maine – Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby – will all head slightly southwest for matches on the road at Williams and Middlebury. Those match-ups will rival the intrigue coming from eastern Massachusetts, with a few rankings-adjacent dotting the schedule. The No. 18 Bates men’s team will be particularly under fire with challenges from No. 21 Williams and No. 20 Middlebury. No. 23 Bowdoin and No. 25 Colby men will certainly have their say with both hosts as well. The top women’s match-up between those teams involves No. 15 Middlebury and No. 18 Bates.
The slate of women’s matches later today features at least three contests that could end with very close results. The No. 16 Amherst women will look to defend their home turf against No. 15 Middlebury. Franklin & Marshall’s teams head north to upstate New York for the weekend, and the stop at Hamilton this evening pits the No. 20 Diplomat women against Hamilton’s 22nd-ranked squad. At Williams, No. 27 Mount Holyoke will aim to continue their winning ways against No. 25 Bowdoin.
The weekend closes with several matches on Sunday, including a classic Ivy League match-up that will be sure to entertain. Yale plays host to two hot Princeton squads in contests that could have a sizable impact on Top-8 rankings by the end of the season. The No. 3 Princeton women will have the most momentum after taking down No. 2 Trinity yesterday in a very tight 5-4 victory. Yale’s 6th-ranked women’s squad will try to slow down the impressive Tigers. On the men’s side, the match pits the No. 7 Bulldogs against the No. 9 Tigers in a battle for Ivy League and national rankings positioning.
View the full college schedules here:
College Squash Women’s Schedule
College Squash Men’s Schedule
Live Scoring will be available for many matches during the weekend on Club Locker.
Please also follow the CSA on Twitter (@CollegeSquash) and Instagram (@college_squash) for social media updates throughout the weekend.
