The 2023 College Squash Association (CSA) National Collegiate Individual Championships commenced on Friday with 160 men’s and women’s players in action at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center in Philadelphia. The results of two top draws – Ramsay Cup for the women and Pool Trophy for the men – will decide the National Collegiate Champions on Sunday.
Friday was an action-packed day with all players guaranteed two matches in the double elimination format. All winners by the end of the day on Friday will progress to semifinals and consolation semifinals on Saturday.
In the race for the Ramsay Cup, all four top seeds moved on to the semifinal round without any matches going to five games. 3-seed Chan Sin Yuk of Columbia and 4-seed Meagan Best of Virginia had the clearest roads to the semifinals with two 3-0 victories each. The top two seeds, Sivasangari Subramaniam (Cornell) and Marina Stefanoni (Harvard), dropped two games and one game, respectively, over the first two rounds, but they still moved comfortably to the penultimate stage of the competition.
In contrast, the Pool Trophy matches produced several surprises on Friday, including two upset quarterfinal winners. Harvard’s George Crowne, the 11-seed, in his final college competition produced two matches of high-quality squash to reach the semifinal ahead of the sixth seed and third seed. Cornell’s Veer Chotrani backed up his win over 2-seed Marwan Tarek (Harvard) from a week ago at the Men’s Team Championships with another victory, this time in a five-game thriller. Top seed Aly Hussein from Virginia survived a slugfest in his quarterfinal, reaching the semifinal where he will meet fourth-seeded Mohamed Sharaf of Trinity.
Semifinalists by Division
Ramsay Cup (A Division)
(1) Sivasangari Subramanaim – Cornell, (2) Marina Stefanoni – Harvard, (3) Chan Sin Yuk – Columbia, (4) Meagan Best – Virginia
Pool Trophy (A Division)
(1) Aly Hussein – Virginia, (4) Mohamed Sharaf – Trinity, (7) Veer Chotrani – Cornell, (11) George Crowne – Harvard
Holleran North
(1) Maria Moya – Virginia, (2) Avni Anand – Penn, (3) Caroline Spahr – Princeton, (5) Lujan Palacios – Trinity
Holleran South
(1) Liyen Teoh – Princeton, (2) Serena Daniel – Harvard, (6) India Stephenson – Princeton, (4) Madeleine Hylland – Trinity
Holleran East
(1) Hannah Chukwu – Trinity, (2) Lina Tammam – Virginia, (3) Erica McGillicuddy – Columbia, (4) Khushi Kukadia – Stanford
Holleran West
(2) Aishwarya Khubchandani – Cornell, (3) Olivia Walsh – Virginia, (5) Brecon Welch – Harvard, (9) Kara Lincou – Trinity
Molloy North
(1) Joachim Chuah – Trinity, (2) Tate Harms – Harvard, (4) Yuri Pollak Pelbart – Drexel, (11) Elliott Hunt – Western
Molloy South
(2) Dillon Huang – Penn, (3) Denis Gilevskiy – Harvard, (5) John Paul Tew – Virginia, (9) Luis Moncada – Rochester
Molloy East
(1) Lewis Anderson – St. Lawrence, (3) Jose Andres Lopez – Drexel, (7) Arav Bhagwati – Yale, (12) Noel Heaton – Drexel
Molloy West
(1) Abdelrahman Lasheen – Rochester, (2) Nicolas Serna – Drexel, (4) Petr Nohel – Franklin & Marshall, (14) Tushar Shahani – Penn
