Hanover, NH — The 2011 Men’s College Squash Association Individual Championship (Pool Trophy) final was contested between Cornell’s Nick Sachvie and Princeton’s Todd Harrity.
Harrity, a finalist in the 2010 Pool Trophy final, defeated Sachvie in three games. With both players being sophomores, the players will have plenty of opportunities for rematches over the next few seasons.
Below is video of the entire match.
Hanover, NH — The 2011 Women’s College Squash Association Individual Championship (Ramsay Cup) final was contested between Yale’s Millie Tomlinson and Harvard’s Laura Gemmell.
Tomlinson defeated the 2010 Ramsay Cup champion in three games. With Tomlinson being a first-year student and Gemmell being a sophomore, the pair are likely to face each other many times in the coming seasons.
Below is video of the entire match.
Bronx, NY — It is with great sadness that the College Squash Association marks the death of former Fordham head squash coach Bob Hawthorn. Hawthorn died on Sunday at the age of 80.
Hawthorn graduated from Fordham in 1953 and was a standout tennis and squash player for the Rams. He began coaching at Fordham in 1956 and led the squash and tennis teams for over 50 years, retiring in 2010. He also taught at Fordham Prep from 1958 to 2005 and became a registered nurse in 1985.
Hawthorn and his wife Eileen also raised seven children, who all attended Fordham and either played for their father or helped manage one of his teams. In recent years, several of his children also assisted Hawthorn in coaching.
In 1998, Hawthorn became the first recipient of the College Squash Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was inducted into the Men’s College Squash Hall of Fame in 2005. When the Men’s National Team Championships expanded to include a seventh division in 2009, the CSA named the new division in Hawthorn’s honor.
At the time of his retirement, many of Hawthorn’s former colleagues commented on his commitment to “developing the person through the medium of squash,” in the words of women’s College Squash Association president Shona Kerr.
Paul Assaiante, whose Trinity men recently won their thirteenth consecutive national team championship, remembered that “Bob was wonderful to me as I started out my career at West Point. Always kind and supportive, Bob will be missed.”
Dave Talbott, who coached the Yale women to the 2011 national team title and Millie Tomlinson to the 2011 women’s individual title, described Hawthorn as an “amazing man who those of us who have been around long enough have learned a lot from that does not have anything to do with hitting the ball.”
Former Fordham players also have shared many fond memories of their coach. Bill Andruss, a 1975 graduate of Fordham and a two-time All-American, offered the following recollection to FordhamSports.com:
Bob was a handsome, good looking man, always well-dressed, always aware that this was about much more than squash. It was about respect, fair play, gentlemanly behavior and hard work, all the while cognizant of the fact that we represented Fordham.
His encouragement and his desire to extract the best from his players will always stand out for me. My very first intercollegiate match took place on a cold December day at West Point. Paired against a very fit opponent on the exhibition court, I lost the first point of the match. Glancing up at the gallery, I saw Bob, the lone civilian standing among seventy-five gray uniforms who were screaming at the top of their lungs and stomping on the floor to create even more of a ruckus. With that little smile of his, he shot me a look that said, “We may be outnumbered, but I’m behind you all the way.” I can remember how proud he was after the match and unafraid to show it. The encouragement he offered me that day has stayed with me to this day.
It is perhaps fitting that a man who contributed to the lives of so many players died on the final day of the 2011 college squash season. Though no Fordham players participated in the Individual Championships, the athleticism, determination, and sportsmanship of the players who did compete reflect the spirit of Hawthorn’s many contributions to college squash.
That spirit, which lives on in so many players, is part of his legacy to the sport. He will indeed be missed.
Hanover, NH — Over the weekend, the 2011 College Squash Association Individual Championships were held at Dartmouth College.
In the Ramsay Cup (Women’s “A” Division), Yale’s Millie Tomlinson defeated Harvard’s Laura Gemmell. Katie Giovinazzo beat Princeton teammate Alexandra Sawin in the Holleran Cup (“B” Division) finals.
Todd Harrity (Princeton) defeated Nick Sachvie (Cornell) to capture the Pool Trophy (Men’s “A” Division). George Washington’s Omar Sobhy captured the Molloy Cup (“B” Division) over Rochester’s Matt Domenick.
Below are selected photos from the Ramsay Cup and the Pool Trophy finals. In addition, below are the trophy presentations of the Molloy Cup and Holleran Cup finalists.
For additional photos from the 2011 College Squash Individual Championships, please visit mtbello.com.
In the coming weeks, many (hundreds) of additional photos will be published from this event, the Women’s National Team Championships (Howe Cup), and the Men’s National Team Championships.
Click on the thumbnails to view a larger version of each photo.
Hanover, NH — Katie Giovinazzo of Princeton has won the 2011 Holleran Cup (women’s B Division title), and Omar Sobhy of George Washington has won the 2011 Molloy Cup (men’s B Division title). Millie Tomlinson of Yale won the A Division for the women, and Todd Harrity of Princeton won the A Division for the men.
The Holleran Cup, named for former Princeton standout and former Penn coach Demer Holleran, was headed back to Princeton no matter the outcome of the final match. The B Division finals featured Princeton teammates Alexandra Sawin and Katie Giovinazzo. Giovinazzo, a junior from Staten Island, has played number 5 most of the season for the Tigers. Sawin, a first-year player from Haverford, PA, has played right behind her in the Princeton line-up. Both players upset Stanford teammates to advance to the finals. Giovinazzo defeated Samantha Buechner, and Sawin beat Kyla Sherwood in the semifinals. Giovinazzo defeated Sawin in four (11-8, 4-11, 11-9, 11-4) to win the B Division title.
The Molloy Cup finals were between Rochester’s Matt Domenick and George Washington’s Omar Sobhy. Domenick, who is from Philadelphia, advanced to the finals with a five-game win over teammate J.P. Gaviria. Sobhy, who is from Sea Cliff, NY, advanced with a win over Nigel Koh of Harvard. The Molloy Cup final was one of the last matches of the tournament, and the first game was close: 12-10 to Sobhy. The George Washington sophomore won the next two games 11-5, 11-9 to win the men’s B Division.
In other results:
The Ramsay Cup (women’s A Division) first consolation final was between two Harvard teammates, Natasha Kingshott and Cecelia Cortes. Cortes won the match 3-1.
The second consolation final in the women’s A Division was between two accomplished senior players. Jackie Moss of Princeton and Pamela Hathway of Trinity finished their collegiate careers with a five-game match, with Hathway coming away with the win.
In the Pool Trophy (men’s A Division) consolation final, Rochester senior Hameed Ahmed faced Dartmouth sophomore Chris Hanson. Both players have dealt with injuries this season, but even so the match was quite competitive. Ahmed capped his career at Rochester with a four-game win, 11-7, 9-11, 11-4, 12-10.
The Pool Trophy second consolation final was between Princeton’s Kelly Shannon and Harvard’s Gary Power. Shannon won in five.
Trevor McGuinness Penn defeated Vir Seth of St. Lawrence 11-5, 12-10, 11-8 in the Molloy consolation final. Rishi Jalan of Cornell and Clay Blackiston of Princeton played for the Molloy second consolation, with Blackiston taking the win 3-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-7).
In the Holleran Cup consolation final, Brown senior captain Carolyn Tilney ended her college career with a four-game win over Middlebury’s Kathryn Bostwick (11-5, 3-11, 11-3, 11-6). In the second consolation final, Robyn Williams of Trinity defeated Courtney Bogle of Williams in three 11-5 games. The third consolation final, between Mount Holyoke’s Vidushi Gurunada and Courtney Jones of Penn, went to Jones in three.
Congratulations to all the players who competed this weekend!
For complete results, please see the live brackets.
Hanover, NH — Todd Harrity of Princeton defeated Nick Sachvie of Cornell 3-0 to win the Pool Trophy and the men’s 2011 national individual championship.
Harrity was like a man on a mission this season. Last year, as a freshman, he made it to the Pool Trophy finals against Colin West of Harvard. During the regular season, Harrity had taken West to four games, and he pushed the Harvard senior to five during the 2010 Men’s National Team Championships.
At the 2010 Individual Championships, held at Trinity, Harrity was close on West’s heels throughout the first two games. The Princeton number 1 lost the first game 9-11 and nearly had the second, falling 11-13 in extra points. After the extreme effort in the second game, it was like the wind was knocked out of Harrity’s sails; he only mustered a single point as West won the title in three.
This season, Harrity has looked nothing like the player who lost that third game a year ago. Over the summer, the Philadelphia native helped the United States win a bronze medal at the World University Games in Australia, upsetting the top player from Hong Kong to bring home the individual bronze as well. Harrity has carried that success on into the college squash season and has been nothing short of dominant. He dropped his first game of the season to Gabe de Melo of F&M, winning in four, and followed that with another four-game win against Sachvie during the Princeton-Cornell dual match.
Since then — late November — Harrity hasn’t lost a game. Gary Power of Harvard pushed him to extra points a few times, but other than that, Harrity has been in command, winning match after match handily.
If there was a player to stop Harrity, it was Sachvie, the last player to win a game off of him. The sophomore from St. Catherines, Ontario, is relatively new to college squash, having transferred to Cornell this year from Niagara College. Though Sachvie is a fresh face, his name should sound familiar to college squash fans. His brother Chris played number 1 for the Big Red and was a two-time All-American; Chris is currently an assistant coach at St. Lawrence. His sister Lauren, a junior at Cornell, has captained the Big Red since she was a sophomore.
Nick Sachvie had an opportunity to make history: no Cornell player or team has ever won a national squash title. Sachvie hadn’t been as dominant as Harrity all season, but the Cornell sophomore certainly was battle-tested. Playing number 1 for the Big Red, he had come out on top of several four- and five-game battles during the regular season, losing only to Gabe de Melo and Harrity.
Sachvie had also shown his versatility through the earlier rounds of Pool Trophy play, besting players with diverse styles, like Kenneth Chan of Yale and Andres Vargas of Trinity. In addition to Vargas and Chan, Sachvie had defeated John Roberts of Yale and Adam Perkiomaki of Rochester en route to the finals.
Harrity had defeated Antonio Diaz (Trinity), Andres Duany (Rochester), Beni Fischer (Rochester), and Vikram Malhotra (Trinity) to advance to the finals.
In the first game, Sachvie hung with Harrity through a series of long rallies. Several errors from Sachvie let Harrity run up the score a bit. Sachvie started to settle and answered Harrity with some terrific shots, but little was getting past the Princeton sophomore. Sachvie tinned a forehand drive to give Harrity the first game 11-6.
The second game was more of the same. It started close: 1-1, 2-2, and then Sachvie pulled out to a short lead, 5-3. Harrity evened the score at 5-5, and the rallies continued to get longer and longer. “All that effort,” Harrity sighed after a rally ended in a let, getting a laugh from the crowd. Another 41-shot rally ended in a let, Sachvie hit a ball out to end a shorter rally. Then the two locked into a 42-shot rally, which Harrity won when Sachvie’s lob went out of court. Harrity outlasted Sachvie to win the game 11-6.
Sachvie kept the score close through most of the third game. Early on Sachvie yelled at himself, his frustration visible, but he stayed within a point of Harrity, sometimes behind, sometimes ahead. Then Harrity pulled ahead at 9-7 with a cross-court to the backhand that Sachvie just missed. Sachvie answered that shot by returning the serve with a kill. The next rally went past 60 shots, including a dramatic series of volley drops that both players had to stretch and scramble to reach. All that effort, and again it ended in a let. Harrity won a shorter rally to bring it to match ball. The next rally was another marathon, over 50 shots. Harrity hit a ball deep to the backhand, and Sachvie attempted to flick it off the back wall. The ball arched up high and fell just short of the front wall, grazing the tin and ending the match.
Bob Callahan, the outgoing men’s College Squash Association president, presented Sachvie with the finalist trophy and Harrity with the Pool Trophy. After thanking host Dartmouth and the CSA’s sponsors — Dunlop, Harrow, and Marquis Jet — Callahan noted that Harrity was the first American player to win the Pool Trophy in over twenty years. He also said the quality of the match reflected how much the standard of play in college squash has risen over the years.
If Harrity was a man on a mission this season, consider it accomplished.
Hanover, NH — Millie Tomlinson of Yale defeated Laura Gemmell of Harvard 3-0 to win the Ramsay Cup and the 2011 women’s college squash individual national championship.
Gemmell, the defending Ramsay Cup champion, had faced increasing pressure coming into the match. The Toronto native had yet to lose a match in two years of intercollegiate play, and as the Crimson’s number 1 player, she had faced the top intercollegiate players for two seasons.
Compared with last season, Gemmell’s performance this year had been slightly less dominant. However, her 2009-2010 season would be a hard one to match: as a first-year player, Gemmell didn’t drop a single game before the individual tournament. It wasn’t until last year’s Ramsay Cup final that Gemmell was truly pushed. Trinity’s Pamela Hathway took Gemmell to five games in a remarkably — and somewhat unexpectedly –close match. Playing at Trinity, Gemmell showed her mettle by fighting back to win the last few points of the fifth and final game of the championship match.
As a defending individual — and team — champion, Gemmell had been playing this season with a target on her back, and her opponents had gamely stepped up to the challenge. She was untouchable during the first part of the season, but after winter break she had several tests. Nabilla Ariffin of Penn and Julie Cerullo of Princeton each won a game off of her, and Catalina Pelaez of Trinity took her to five in early February. At Howe Cup, the women’s national team championships, Gemmell had a competitive four-game match with Pelaez in the semifinals, followed by a long five-gamer against Yale senior captain Logan Greer in the finals. Greer, the 2011 Richey Award winner, gave it her all in an attempt to secure the national title for the Bulldogs, who eventually went on to win the match 5-4. As in the Ramsay Cup final the year before, Gemmell showed her ability to dig in during a close, pressure-filled situation, and came back with the win.
Tomlinson had had a dominant season of her own this year. After losing her first match of her collegiate career to Yarden Odinak of Penn, she never looked back, winning all of her other matches in three. Throughout the season, Tomlinson, of Derbyshire, UK, had been a rock, turning in commanding performances at crucial moments for the Bulldogs, including the 5-4 wins over Harvard that clinched the Ivy and national titles for Yale.
Despite her strong play all season, Tomlinson was something of a question mark coming into the individual tournament, where she was seeded seventh. There was a sense that no one in college squash had yet seen her best play. Tomlinson primarily played number 2 for the Bulldogs, though she also played number 3 a few times and played number 1 against some lower-ranked teams. She had the benefit of playing behind Greer in the Bulldogs’ lineup. While Greer was not invincible at number 1, the senior captain was a strong leader for the Bulldogs, used to playing in the spotlight after four years at the top of line-up. Sarah Toomey, another accomplished Yale senior, consistently turned in strong performances either just before or after Tomlinson, taking off some of the pressure.
Gemmell had advanced to the final with a 3-0 win over Princeton’s Alexandra Sawin in the opening round. Jaime Laird of Cornell gave her a bit of a run for her money, winning the second game in the quarterfinals, but Gemmell followed that up with two solid games to win the match in four. She defeated Cerullo in three in the semifinals. Tomlinson had advanced to the finals with a series of convincing 3-0 wins over Jackie Moss (Princeton), Pelaez, and Nirasha Gurgue of Harvard.
Today’s match began with Tomlinson jumping ahead to a quick 4-1 lead in the first game, with both players winning on shots with good length to the backhand. Tomlinson reached 10 first, but Gemmell came from behind to even the score. Tomlinson took the first game 12-10.
Tomlinson again jumped to the lead in the second game, winning nine points before tinning on the forehand to put Gemmell on the board. Gemmell earned two more points with boasts to the forehand, but Tomlinson came back strong to win the game 11-3.
The third game opened with Tomlinson running up the score with a series of deft shots to the front. At 7-2, Gemmell began to stage a comeback, winning points with more aggressive play and some good gets. After Tomlinson hit a drive out of court, the score was tied 9-9. Tomlinson had more success going short to move the score to 10-9. The players then played a total of six let balls, each rally opening with a sustained exchange of drives. After the sixth let ball, Tomlinson, who had been composed throughout the match, banged her hand against the door. She served and answered Gemmell’s cross court with a forceful forehand drive. Gemmell tinned a boast, and with that Tomlinson was the 2011 Ramsay Cup champion.
Gail Ramsay, the Princeton coach and four-time individual champion for whom the Ramsay Cup is named, presented the finalist trophy to Gemmell and the Ramsay Cup to Tomlinson.
A month ago, Tomlinson wasn’t planning to compete at the Individual Championships. Yale’s spring break starts this week, and her family had booked her a flight home this weekend. Seeing how strong Tomlinson was playing, Yale coach Dave Talbott convinced her to change her flight to Monday.
Now she’ll have a championship trophy to bring home with her.
Hanover, NH — The quarters and semis were played today, setting the stage for the men’s and women’s finals at the 2011 Individual Championships.
In men’s Pool Trophy (A Division) play, two sets of Trinity teammates faced off in the quarterfinals. Chris Binnie, who clinched the Bantams’ thirteenth consecutive national title last weekend, played Vikram Malhotra, who has played number 1 for Trinity this season. Malhotra won in four games.
Two other Trinity players, Andres Vargas and Randy Lim, met in one of the other quarters. Both Vargas and Lim tend to play long, punishing matches with endless rallies, and today’s match was no exception. Vargas won in five.
The other two quarterfinal matches were more lopsided. Todd Harrity of Princeton continued his season-long dominance with a 3-0 win over Rochester number 1 Beni Fischer. Harrity is undefeated this season and last dropped a game in November.
The player he lost that game to, Nick Sachvie of Cornell, emerged victorious over Yale’s Kenneth Chan in the fourth quarterfinal. It looked like Chan was going to steal the third game and force a fourth, but Sachvie came back to win the third in extra points.
The first semifinal was between Harrity and Malhotra, and Harrity delivered another strong performance. Though it looked like Malhotra had a fleeting chance for a comeback in the third game, Harrity pulled through with another three-game win.
Sachvie and Vargas met in the second semifinal. Though Sachvie won in three close games, Vargas made him work for the win, grinding out rally after rally.
Harrity and Sachvie will compete for the Pool Trophy tomorrow at 1:30 pm. Harrity made it to the Pool Trophy finals last year, where he lost to Colin West.
In the Pool Trophy consolation bracket, Antonio Diaz (Trinity), Hameed Ahmed (Rochester), Gui de Melo (F&M), and Chris Hanson (Dartmouth) made it to the semifinals. Ahmed and Hanson will play in the finals. Andres Duany (Rochester), Gary Power (Harvard), Parth Sharma (Trinity), and Kelly Shannon (Princeton) advanced to the second consolation semifinals.
One of the most exciting matches of the day came in the women’s Ramsay Cup quarterfinals. Yale’s Logan Greer, the 2011 Richey Award winner, led Harvard’s Nirasha Gurgue 2-0. Gurgue stormed back with composed, commanding play to win the next three games and advance into the semifinals.
The quarterfinal match between Julie Cerullo of Princeton and Rachael Goh of Penn opened with a marathon first game. Cerullo and Goh traded points back and forth until Cerullo finally pulled away to win 20-18. The Princeton sophomore won the next two games decisively, 11-4, 11-7.
Two first-year players, Trinity’s Catalina Pelaez and Yale’s Millie Tomlinson, met in one of the other quarterfinals. Pelaez was seeded second coming into the tournament and Tomlinson was seeded seventh. The opening game was close, with Tomlinson coming out on top 11-9. Then Tomlinson pulled away, winning the next two games 11-3, 11-6.
The fourth quarterfinal was between Harvard’s Laura Gemmell, the defending Ramsay Cup champion, and Stanford’s top player, Pamela Chua. When the two played earlier in the year, Gemmell won in three, with two 11-9 games. Today’s match was less close; Gemmell won 11-8, 11-2, 11-5.
The semifinal match-ups were Gemmell-Cerullo and Gurgue-Tomlinson. Gemmell and Cerullo both play number 1 for their teams, and when they last met in February, Gemmell won in four, with Cerullo taking the second game 11-9. This time around, Cerullo evened the score several times but was not able to close out a win. Gemmell won in three: 11-7, 11-7, 11-8.
Gurgue and Tomlinson had also played in the regular season and in the women’s finals at Howe Cup, as both play number 2 for their respective teams. Each time, Tomlinson had won in three close games, and tonight she won again in three.
Gemmell and Tomlinson will play for the Ramsay Cup tomorrow at 12:30 pm. Tomlinson dropped the first match of her collegiate career and has been undefeated since; Gemmell has yet to lose a match in intercollegiate play. Since Gemmell played number 1 for Harvard and Tomlinson primarily played number 2 for Yale, they have not yet played each other this season. They have two opponents in common. Gemmell defeated Jaime Laird of Cornell 11-9, 6-11, 11-6, 11-7 yesterday, and Tomlinson defeated Laird 11-3, 11-7, 11-8 in January. Gemmell defeated Pelaez 11-9, 11-8, 8-11, 11-7 at Howe Cup and won 9-11, 11-5, 7-11, 11-9, 11-6 earlier in February. (As mentioned above, Tomlinson defeated Pelaez 11-9, 11-3, 11-6 earlier today.)
In the Ramsay Cup consolation draw, Cheri-Ann Parris of Bates, Natasha Kingshott of Harvard, Cecelia Cortes of Harvard, and Pia Trikha of Penn all advanced to the semifinals. Kingshott defeated Parris to advance to the finals, where she will face Cortes. Nabilla Ariffin of Penn and Pamela Hathway of Trinity met in one second consolation semifinal, and Valeria Wiens of Dartmouth and Jackie Moss of Princeton met in the other.
Given the larger draws in the men’s and women’s B Divisions, the semifinals and finals will both be held on Sunday. The round of 16 and the quarterfinals were held today.
In the Holleran Cup (women’s B Division), Kyla Sherwood (Stanford), Casey Cortes (Princeton), Alexandra Sawin (Princeton), Emery Holton (Trinity), Katie Giovinazzo (Princeton), Gwen Tilghman (Yale), Nikki Sequeira (Princeton), and Samantha Buechner (Stanford) all advanced to the quarterfinals. The semifinal match-ups will be Sherwood-Sawin and Giovinazzo-Buechner.
Carolyn Tilney of Brown and Kathryn Bostwick of Middlebury will play in the Holleran Cup consolation final. Both Tilney and Bostwick advanced with wins over Mount Holyoke players: Tilney defeated Tempest Bowden, and Bostwick defeated Shaheen Madraswala.
Caroline Feeley (Princeton) and Courtney Bogle (Williams) will play in one second consolation semifinal, and Robyn Williams (Trinity) and Alexandra Glassman (Cornell) will compete in the other.
In the third round consolation, Jackie Shea (George Washington) will play Vidushi Gurunada (Mount Holyoke), and Courtney Jones (Penn) will play Robyn Hodgson (Trinity).
In the Molloy Cup (men’s B Division), Joe Chapman (Rochester), J.P. Gaviria (Rochester), Adrian Leanza (Brown), Matt Domenick (Rochester), Zeke Scherl (Harvard), Nigel Koh (Harvard), Robbie Berner (Yale), and Omar Sobhy (George Washington) advanced to the quarterfinals. Koh and Sobhy will compete in one of the semifinals, and Gaviria will play the winner of the Leanza-Domenick match.
Trevor McGuinness (Penn) and Peter Nolan (Kenyon) met in one of the consolation semifinals, and Vir Seth (St. Lawrence) and Allan Lutz (Navy) met in the other.
Alexander Ma (Harvard) and Rishi Jalan (Cornell) will play in one of the second consolation semifinals on Sunday morning, and Clay Blackiston (Princeton) and Graham Miao (Columbia) will play in the other.
For complete results, see the live brackets.
Hanover, NH — Play at the 2011 men’s and women’s Individual Championships started this morning at Dartmouth’s Berry Sports Center.
In the first round of Ramsay Cup (women’s A Division) play, there were no upsets as the higher-seeded player in each match-up advanced. Number 2 seed Catalina Pelaez of Trinity had a scare from Sarah Mumanachit of Harvard, who was seeded 32nd coming into the tournament. Playing on the glass exhibition court, Mumanachit came back from losing the first game 6-11 to win the next two 11-5, 12-10. Pelaez regrouped and won the fourth game 11-2 before closing the match with an authoritative 11-2 win.
Last year’s Ramsay Cup finalist, Pamela Hathway of Trinity, had a scare of her own in the opening round, thanks to another Harvard player, Natasha Kingshott. Kingshott, seeded 28th, won the first and third games, but fifth-seeded Hathway hung on to win 13-11 in the fourth. Hathway took the match with an 11-7 win in the fifth.
The Trinity senior couldn’t repeat her feat in the round of 16. Facing twelfth-seeded Rachael Goh of Penn, Hathway lost the fifth game 8-11 after winning the first and third. Goh will face Julie Cerullo of Princeton in the quarterfinals.
Goh’s win wasn’t the only upset of the evening; Nirasha Gurgue of Harvard, who came into the tournament seeded sixteenth, upset sixth-seeded Valeria Wiens of Dartmouth in four.
Also advancing to the quarters was last year’s Ramsay Cup champion, Laura Gemmell of Harvard. Gemmell defeated Princeton’s Alexis Saunders 3-0 in the first round, and then had a bumpier trip in the round of 16 against Cornell’s Jaime Laird. Laird pushed Gemmell in a close first game and then won the second, but Gemmell came back strong to take the next two games and win in four.
Millie Tomlinson and Logan Greer, both of Yale, also advanced.
As of publication, the results of the round of 16 matches between Pelaez and Kim Hay, and Nabilla Ariffin and Pamela Chua had yet to be reported.
Thanks to a number of close matches, the Pool Trophy (men’s A Division) matches were already backed up by midday. There were two upsets in the first round. One was between two players seeded back-to-back: Richard Dodd of Yale (seeded sixteenth) and Andres Duany of Rochester (seeded seventeenth). Duany defeated Dodd with three 11-6 games.
The other opening round upset was one of the most exciting matches of the afternoon. Playing before a home crowd, Darmouth’s Chris Hanson, the number 7 seed, outlasted Kelly Shannon of Princeton 15-13 and 13-11 in the first two games. Shannon, who was seeded 26th, came back from being down 0-2 to win the next three games 11-6, 11-9, 11-7.
Although the higher seeded players in all the other opening round match-ups advanced, many had to work hard for their wins. Gabe de Melo of F&M, Thomas Spettigue of Cornell, John Roberts of Yale, and Kenneth Chan of Yale all prevailed in five-game matches to advance to the next round.
The men should be playing late into the evening, but as of publication, Vikram Malhotra of Trinity had advanced to the semifinals with a 3-0 win over Spettigue, and last year’s Pool Trophy finalist, Todd Harrity of Princeton, had moved forward with a 3-0 win over Duany. Nick Sachvie of Cornell and Beni Fischer of Rochester have also advanced.
The men’s and women’s B Division draws were both larger than the A Division draws. A number of players in the Holleran Cup (women’s B Division) had opening round byes. Caroline Feeley (Princeton), Kristine Bell (Vassar), Mary Foster (Wesleyan), Vidushi Gurunada (Mount Holyoke), Abby Jenkins (Middlebury), Katie Quan (Columbia), Kelly Barnes (George Washington), Andrea Echeverria (Trinity), Robyn Williams (Trinity), Maggie Remsen (Cornell), Dori Rahbar (Brown), Alli Rubin (Williams), and Lexi Glassman (Cornell) all advanced with wins.
Of those players, only Gurunada of Mount Holyoke advanced to the round of 16. Gurunada won her first two games against Williams’ Courtney Bogle, who was seeded twelfth in the draw. Then Bogle came back to win the next two, forcing a fifth. Gurunada, ranked 21st, pushed back to win the fifth 11-6.
Also advancing to the round of 16 were Robyn Hodgson (Trinity), Samantha Buechner (Stanford), Sarah Domenick (Brown), Nikki Sequeira (Princeton), Gwen Tilghman (Yale), Katie Giovinazzo (Princeton), Courtney Jones (Penn), Lauren Gesswein (Bowdoin), Randima Ranaweera (Mount Holyoke), Emery Holton (Trinity), Alexandra Sawin (Princeton), Shara Robertson (Mount Holyoke), Kyla Sherwood (Stanford), Casey Cortes (Princeton), and Jackie Shea (George Washington).
In the Molloy Cup (B Division), Caleb Garza (Connecticut College), Juan Flores (Trinity), Blake Reinson (Brown), Anthony Zou (Columbia), Hunter Bouchard (Navy), Adrian Leanza (Brown), Will Gruner (Williams), Andrew Bernard (Bowdoin), Harry Smith (Colby), William Morris (Williams), Brad Thompson (Brown), John Steele (Wesleyan), Alex Dodge (St. Lawrence), Jeremy Herrmann (Williams), Graham Miao (Columbia), and Sam Gould (Stanford). Garza’s win over Alex Gross, Zou’s win over Trevor McGuinness, Bernard’s win over Amay Merchant, Miao’s win over Allan Lutz, and Gould’s win over Andrew Kriete were all upsets.
The players to advance to the round of 16 were Thompson, Bouchard, Leanza, Flores, Christopher Jung (Dartmouth), Robert Maycock (Dartmouth), Omar Sohby (George Washington), Johan Detter (Trinity), Nigel Koh (Harvard), Ryan Dowd (Yale), Mike Lewis (Dartmouth), Robert Berner (Yale), Zeke Scherl (Harvard), Juan Pablo Gaviria (Rochester), Matt Domenick (Rochester), and Joe Chapman (Rochester).
For complete results, see the live brackets that are being updated throughout the weekend.
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