Semifinal day at the 2022 CSA National Collegiate Women’s Team Championships displayed an entertaining mix of seeded wins and upset victories in Boston, Mass. on Saturday. Four trophies will now be up for grabs on Sunday, including a Howe Cup National Championship between six-time defending champion Harvard and sixth-seeded Drexel in their first Howe Cup final in program history.
Howe Cup – National Championship Division
Sunday’s Howe Cup final will feature a titanic battle between familiar and new faces as top seed Harvard takes on 6-seed debutants Drexel. The teams’ roads to the final were about as different as they come with all of the drama coming from the Drexel-Trinity match on the Murr Center’s front courts.
Drexel pulled out to a 2-1 lead after the first round of matches thanks to relatively comfortable 3-1 wins at No. 4 and No. 8. The lead increased to 3-1 due to a quick win at No. 9 for Drexel, but Trinity stormed back to level the team score at 3. The teams split the No. 6 and 7 matches to knot the score at 4 apiece with the No. 2 players just getting on court. Trinity’s Nouran Youssef jumped out to a tough 2-0 lead, but Drexel’s Alina Bushma steadied the ship and wore down her opponent one game at the time. Bushma’s 3-2 win meant that Drexel became only the second non-Ivy League team in CSA history – besides Trinity – to earn a Howe Cup finals berth.
Their opponent will be Harvard, who earned a spot in their 11th consecutive Howe Cup final with a clean 9-0 win over rival Yale. Once again, Harvard’s players only relinquished three total games to their opponents and stormed to victory in short order. The win was the Crimson’s 97th in a row and 20th straight in Howe Cup competition.
The Kurtz Cup will pit two Ivy League rivals – Cornell and Dartmouth – against each other for the second time this season after the seedings held true through to the final. The two teams are clearly a step above their divisional peers this season as they both clinched comprehensive victories in a short timeframe.
Top seed Cornell ran away with the 1-versus-4 match win over Tufts, putting on a skillful display, especially at the top of the ladder. 3-seed Brown put up a fight in the early going, taking a match in the first wave, but Dartmouth captured the necessary five team points via a 3-0 second wave. Brown closed strong with two wins in the third round, but it turned out to be too little, too late.
All season long, the rankings in positions 17-24 have been topsy-turvy with teams switching positions after mixed results. That trend continued all the way through the semifinals on Saturday where fifth-seeded Dickinson and sixth-seeded William Smith claimed berths to Sunday’s final. Dickinson met top-seeded Franklin & Marshall for the fourth time this season, and like the most recent result, Dickinson emerged victorious, this time by a 6-3 score.
William Smith also met a familiar opponent and local rival in Hamilton. Hamilton kept pace in the first wave of matches, only losing 2 out of 3, but William Smith proved too strong with six straight wins in the final two rounds. William Smith and Dickinson met once previously during the regular season where a home William Smith side earned a 6-3 victory.
The Epps Cup semifinals played out according to seeding on Saturday afternoon. Top-seeded Georgetown continued their impressive run in their first year of varsity play with a 6-3 win over Haverford. The Fords improved on their result against Georgetown from the regular season, but it was not enough to overcome the in-form Hoyas squad.
In the other Epps semifinal, 2-seed Colby and 3-seed Conn College rekindled their rivalry for a spot in the finals. Like they had during the NESCAC Women’s Championship, Colby took out an overmatched Conn team by an 8-1 scoreline. Conn tried to get a foothold in the match with an early win at the No. 8 position, but Colby was too strong at the top, securing the win with a sweep in the last six matches.
