Hartford, CT — While Trinity’s victory over Yale at the 2009-2010 Men’s National Team Championships was nowhere as suspenseful as their win over Princeton the year before, a 5-4 victory that came down to the final points of the final game, it may signal more parity amongst the top men’s teams.
Trinity won all three of its top three matches in straight sets, but the competition away from court #1 was much closer, with Trinity and Yale splitting the bottom six matches. Two of those matches went to five games, with Trinity’s number 7 Chris Binnie and Yale’s number 9 C.J. Plimpton hanging on to win for their respective teams. As two of Trinity’s top players — number 1 Baset Chaudhry and number 3 Supreet Singh — have graduated, the action on courts #2 and #3 may be more representative of the season to come.
“This will be a banner year for college squash with a parity at the top, which we have not seen in recent years,” Trinity head coach Paul Assaiante predicts. “It’s anybody’s championship to take.”
Singh and two-time national individual champion Chaudhry, who Assaiante describes as “very hard if not impossible to replace,” are the only two Bantams not returning. The rest of the squad will be back to make a bid for a thirteenth consecutive national title and to extend their 224-match winning streak. The returning players include 2009-2010 All-Americans Parth Sharma, Antonio Dias-Gonzales Salas, Vikram Malhotra, Randy Lim, and Andres Vargas. Sharma, Salas, Malhotra, and Lim all earned All-NESCAC honors as well.
Trinity will again be the team to beat this season, but Assaiante acknowledges that a number of teams have become increasingly competitive in recent years. “Our goal is to remain competitive as the level of squash in the CSA continues to rise,” he says. Along with the “always strong” Princeton Tigers and traditional powerhouses Yale and Harvard, he points to Rochester, Cornell, and F&M as teams that have become increasingly deep. “It is so exciting to see the influx of strong international players but also to see US players like Todd Harrity, Chris Hanson, and Alex Domenick playing better and better as they helped to bring the US a bronze medal this summer in the World University Games,” for which Assaiante served as US head coach.
If anything’s for sure, it will be an exciting season for Trinity and for men’s college squash as a whole.
2009-2010 SEASON RECAP
Season Record: 20-0
Final Ranking: 1
Team Championships/Conference: 1st Overall; 1st in Potter Cup (A Division); 1st at NESCAC Championship
2010-2011 SEASON PREVIEW
Program Status: Varsity
Head Coach: Paul Assaiante
Returning Players from Team Championships: Christopher Binnie (7); Johan Detter (10); Antonio Dias Gonzalez (6; 1st Team All-American; 1st Team All-NESCAC); Reinhold Hergeth (9); Randy Lim (5; 2nd Team All-American; 2nd Team All-NESCAC); Vikram Malhotra (4; 1st Team All-American; 2nd Team All-NESCAC); Parth Sharma (2; 1st Team All-American; 1st Team All-NESCAC); Andres Vargas (8; 2nd Team All-American); also Paul Rodriguez, Travis Judson, Daniel Echevarria, and Greg Crane
Graduates on Last Season’s Team Championships Roster: Baset Chaudhry (1; 1st Team All-NESCAC; 2009-2010 Captain); Supreet Singh (3; 1st Team All-American; 2nd Team All-NESCAC; 2009-2010 Captain)
Additions to the 2010-2011 Roster: None
Captains: Travis Judson, Parth Sharma, and Andres Vargas
Team Goals: Remain competitive as the level of squash in the CSA continues to rise; to have another perfect season
Key Matches: Princeton, Rochester, and Yale
To read other team previews, please visit the 2010 – 2011 College Squash Preview Page.
