The draws are now released for the 2019 CSA Women’s Team National Championships, to be hosted at Trinity College and Wesleyan University on February 22-24, 2019.
All draws and live streaming of showcase courts are available on the Women’s Team Nationals page or via the link above. The web stream will follow the action on Trinity’s courts with commentary.
Live scores from all of the action at each venue can be tracked on the following links: Trinity and Wesleyan. You can also follow live scores on Club Locker for every match throughout the weekend by using your US Squash login or creating a free account.
43 teams from around the country will attend the championships and compete across five divisions: 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 the E Division (33-43).
Once again, the Harvard Crimson women are the team to beat at the top of the rankings. They have won four Howe Cups in a row and have not lost a team match in the last 63 contests. Harvard stepped up their game to an even higher level this season, winning all 10 of their regular season matches by a 9-0 score. Harvard takes on No. 8 Drexel in the first round tomorrow.
Princeton, who earned second overall seed on the back of a 13-1 record, will face Columbia in the first round, a team they beat 8-1 during the last weekend of the regular season. A Princeton victory would possibly set up a major showdown with 3-seed Trinity in the semifinal on Saturday, though Trinity will have to handle a first-round challenge from sixth seed Penn. In the final Howe Division quarterfinal, Stanford and Yale meet in a rematch of Stanford’s 7-2 victory in California in January.
Dartmouth College barely edged Virginia for the top seed in the Kurtz Division. The Big Green will face Amherst in the first round, while the Cavaliers will look to match their result against Middlebury from earlier in the season, a 9-0 win. The 3-seed Cornell and 4-seed Brown women will also look for repeat wins against George Washington and Williams, respectively. Dartmouth will be looking for their third Kurtz Cup in four years.
After an impressive run of success this season, Tufts will be the top seed heading into Walker Division play and will be on the hunt for their first Walker championship. Barring an upset by 8-seed St. Lawrence, Tufts will face either Franklin & Marshall or Mount Holyoke, who played their way into the Walker Division with strong results throughout the season. On the other side of the bracket, Dickinson and defending Walker Cup Champion Bates will be the favorites to move on to the semifinals.
Colby and Haverford are the top two seeds in the Epps Cup, where the nations top women’s club teams make an appearance. Each quarterfinal match-up pits a varsity program versus a club program, which is sure to offer some intriguing match-ups. William Smith will look to defend its Epps Cup title, while 4-seed Connecticut College want to earn their first Epps championship.
Competition for the E Division championship should be fierce, with 11 teams making up the bracket, including top seed Vassar. Teams that emerge from the play-in matches on Friday evening will fill out the quarterfinal bracket, which will play out over the course of the day on Saturday at Wesleyan. We could have a new E Division Champion this season, with only Colgate and Wellesley being in the draw and having won the title previously.
