HomeArticlesWeekend Recap: Top-Ranked Teams Impress

Weekend Recap: Top-Ranked Teams Impress

If the remaining weeks of the regular season are anything like this past weekend – the first full weekend of matches in 2022 – college squash fans are in for a treat. The University of Pennsylvania men solidified their top-ranked standing, the Harvard women gutted out a win to extend their historic winning streak, and numerous close matches dotted the schedule throughout the weekend.

Penn’s Aly Abou El Einen (left) avenged his Pool Trophy final loss to Harvard’s Marwan Tarek (right) to help lead his team to a historic victory over the Crimson, Penn’s first regular season win over Harvard since 1979. (photo by Michael T. Bello)
  • The Penn men, ranked No. 1 since the beginning of the season, defended that standing and their home courts against No. 2-ranked Harvard, notching their first regular season victory against the Crimson since 1979. Penn’s depth proved to be too strong for Harvard to overcome, with the Quakers winning in positions 5 through 9.
  • To their credit, both Harvard teams showed grit and a winning mentality in crucial matches against the third-ranked Princeton teams on Sunday. The No. 1 Harvard women saw their 87-match winning streak in potential jeopardy, but a gutsy comeback victory by first-year Habiba Eldefrawy at the #4 position clinched the fifth team point for the Crimson. The Princeton men took a 3-2 lead when Youssef Ibrahim outmatched Victor Crouin in a titanic battle at #1, but Harvard buckled down in the final rotation of matches to take the 5-4 victory.
  • The other Ivy League matches produced some excellent squash, but the results fell according to ranking in all but one match. The No. 6 Columbia women welcomed No. 4 Yale to the Big Apple on Sunday. Columbia’s formidable top three players set the tone for the Lions, who looked strong on their way to a 6-3 win. Both Trinity teams (No. 2 women/No. 4 men) went 2-0 on the weekend over Columbia and Cornell.
  • The teams from Bowdoin are two of the hottest teams in the CSA at the moment. The men followed up a monumental win against Amherst from earlier in the week with two resounding victories over Hobart and Dickinson. Not to be outdone, the Bowdoin women defended home court against a motivated William Smith side before upsetting Dickinson for another big win.
  • Other teams on the rise this weekend were the Georgetown women and the St. Lawrence men. Georgetown went 2-1 at the Pioneer Valley Invitational, including an upset win over Conn College. St. Lawrence narrowly missed an upset of Franklin & Marshall on Sunday before righting the ship for a strong win over Brown on Monday afternoon.

Full results from the season so far can be viewed here: Women and Men.

Stay tuned for the updated college squash rankings to be released tomorrow, January 19.

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