The first of several weekends with championships at stake has arrived, and teams are poised to make their final push as the team championships approach.

This weekend, five conference champions will be crowned through tournament play, while two others will be on the brink of clinching outright titles.

Championship play starts on Friday afternoon at the Mid-Atlantic Squash Conference (MASC) Championships, hosted by George Washington University. MASC is up to five women’s teams and seven men’s teams, with more looking to join in future years.

Both Drexel University teams captured the top seeds for the second-year championship event. The women’s division will be sorted through round-robin play, while the men’s championship has a seven-team bracket, with the Dragons earning a first-round bye. University of Virginia, the second seed in both divisions, will be battling to repeat their titles from a year ago.

The New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Women’s Championship also kicks off on Friday evening with matches between the sixth- through eleventh-seeded teams.

The Trinity women, currently ranked third in the country and top seed in the event, will aim to bounce back from a close battle with top-ranked Harvard on Wednesday. The Bantam women are heavy favorites to repeat. If the regular season competition is any indication, however, the matches between the teams seeded second through fifth – Williams, Amherst, Bates, and Middlebury, respectively – will be the results to keep an eye on. Conference results are factored in to the final rankings in preparation for the CSA team tournaments.

The Liberty League Championships get started early on Saturday morning in a five-team men’s round robin format and a four-team women’s round robin competition. University of Rochester and Hobart and William Smith Colleges are the co-hosts this year, with the hosts looking grab some hardware in front of the home crowd.  Rochester is the highest seeded team on the men’s side, while William Smith comes in ranked highest among the women’s teams.

The last full weekend of Ivy League play takes place this weekend with split home-and-away travel weekends. The Ivy match-ups add to the intrigue of Friday night, particularly with Yale teams hoping to solidify their resume with a winning trip to Dartmouth, and the Columbia women trying to justify the jump over their opponent, Penn, in the most recent rankings.

With two wins over Brown (Friday) and archrival Yale (Sunday), defending champions Harvard will clinch at least a share of the Ivy League titles for this season. The Crimson’s match at Cornell next weekend is the final contest of the season-long Ivy League round robin competition.

Even with all of the championship play taking place, there are several other matches among CSA member teams this weekend. Round robins scheduled at Northeastern University in Boston and Kenyon College in Ohio provide great opportunities for teams to grab more match experience. Additionally, Haverford welcomes Denison and Bucknell to suburban Philadelphia and Richmond hosts local rivals Duke and William & Mary.

The order of play for the week from February 6 to February 12 is:

• 3-court system:  1,2,3 / 5,6,4 / 7,8,9
• 5-court system:  1,2 / 4,3 / 5,6 / 8,7 / 10,9

View the full college schedules, as well as live results, here:
College Squash Women’s Schedule
College Squash Men’s Schedule

Please also follow the CSA on Twitter (@CollegeSquash) and Instagram (@college_squash) for social media updates throughout the weekend.

After a wildly exciting first month of 2020, the calendar turns to February this weekend, the last month of the college squash regular season. Although there are not as many matches between teams right next to each other in the polls this weekend, the spotlight will still be just as bright as teams look for those extra wins polish their records.

Critical match-ups among Ivy League foes take center stage this weekend with both men’s and women’s top-8 positioning hanging in the balance.

The Yale women – currently ranked No. 4 – face the toughest challenge and arguably have the most to play for. An upset at No. 2 Princeton on Saturday would give Yale two wins over the top three teams and an even stronger case for a higher ranking. The Bulldogs will need to bounce back quickly from that match because a showdown in Philadelphia with No. 5 Penn looms large on Sunday. The No. 8 Yale men have a difficult road ahead as well, taking on No. 4 Princeton and No. 3 Penn on back-to-back days.

Dartmouth, coming off two big victories and a jump into A Division contention, also make a southern swing, taking on Cornell (Saturday) and Columbia (Sunday). The Dartmouth women’s move to No. 7 in the rankings bumped Columbia to No. 9, but the Lions will be on the prowl looking to reverse that change with a win. With the women’s teams ranked 5 through 9 closer than ever, many eyes around the CSA will be on that match this weekend.

There is also a logjam around the lower end of the B Division for both men and women, and this weekend’s results could go a long way toward clarifying both pictures.

Newly-minted No. 16 Williams men will play a prominent role with a busy weekend ahead. After leapfrogging No. 17 MIT in the latest standings, Williams travels to Cambridge to meet the Engineers head-to-head on Saturday. There will be no rest for the weary, though, as the Ephs return to western Massachusetts on Sunday for the Little Three competition against Amherst and Wesleyan. Amherst, currently tied for 20th after upsetting MIT last weekend, will aim to play spoiler again on their home courts.

On the women’s side, there is already a three-way tie for 15th between Amherst, Bates, and Middlebury, but the weekend’s matches could break up that deadlock thanks to matches with No. 18 Franklin & Marshall, No. 19 Tufts, and No. 20 Wesleyan. With five of those six teams being competitors in the NESCAC, this weekend’s results take on an added layer of importance due to the NESCAC women’s championships being right around the corner.

Another team with a challenging weekend ahead is the No. 24 Hamilton women. Currently seeded in the last position in the Walker (C) Division, they will want to solidify their place with strong performances against No. 26 Colby and No. 23 William Smith on Saturday.

Several club teams also have busy weekends ahead as they look to gain their first taste of match experience in the spring semester.

The order of play for the week from January 30 to February 5 is:

• 3-court system:  1,3,2 / 4,5,6 / 7,9,8
• 5-court system:  2,1 / 4,3 / 5,6 / 8,7 / 10,9

View the full college schedules, as well as live results, here:
College Squash Women’s Schedule
College Squash Men’s Schedule

Please also follow the CSA on Twitter (@CollegeSquash) and Instagram (@college_squash) for social media updates throughout the weekend.

Courtesy of Georgetown University Department of Athletics

WASHINGTON – Georgetown University Director of Athletics Lee Reed announced Wednesday that the University has added women’s squash as its newest varsity program.

Intercollegiate squash is governed by the Collegiate Squash Association (CSA) and will bring Georgetown University’s number of non-NCAA varsity sports total to four.  The addition of women’s squash continues Georgetown’s long history of expanding participation opportunities for female student -athletes and invites a broad experience for the student body.

Squash has been at Georgetown since 2007. The current women’s squash program is the third ranked club team in the country, and ranked No.31 by the CSA making it the top-ranked non-varsity program.  This team will practice and hold all home matches at the exciting new squash venue, Squash on Fire, just two miles from campus.  The new venue features eight courts, including two state-of-the-art all-glass exhibition courts.

Georgetown’s outstanding academic reputation coupled with its national excellence in intercollegiate athletics will enable the new program to attract top student-athletes and coaches.  A national search for a head coach will begin in the coming weeks and will be assisted by Wendy Lawrence, former president of the Women’s College Squash Association.

The CSA season runs from November through late February, culminating with the team championships. The CSA individual championships are held in early March. Georgetown will play the maximum of 15 competition dates. Multiple matches can take place on the same date. This past season, there were 31 women’s varsity programs in the CSA as well as 19 club programs including Georgetown.

“As educators and administrators, we strive to broaden the opportunities on campus and the addition of women’s squash aligns with that mission,” said Reed.  “Intercollegiate athletics play such an important role within the framework of a university and I’m excited that more students will have an opportunity to compete as varsity athletes, as well as the chance to engage with a new segment of the Georgetown community.  As we move ahead, the Department of Athletics will be developing a long-term fundraising plan for this exciting new program.”

“We feel honored to have led a team of amazing women during our senior year at Georgetown. We could not be more proud of our teammates’ hard work and accomplishments. To witness the program take this step is unbelievably rewarding, and we are thrilled to watch the team grow even more as part of the Georgetown Athletics family,” said current club co-captains Kaleigh O’Connor (C’20) and Kaitlin Huges (C’20).

For anyone interested in more information on the women’s squash program, please contact Kelli Myers, Chief of Staff, Associate Athletics Director for Sport Administration at Kelli.myers@georgetown.edu.

Quote from CSA Executive Director & League Commissioner David Poolman:

“We are thrilled to partner with Georgetown Athletics on this exciting transition! This is a fantastic development for the college squash community, a move that aligns perfectly with one of the core parts of our mission: to increase and enhance opportunities to play college squash. The Georgetown women’s team is a welcome addition to the ranks of our varsity teams. Congratulations, Hoyas, and Welcome!”

For the first time in the 2019-2020 season, the College Squash Association (CSA) has applied its ELO-based ranking algorithm to guide the formation of the team rankings. That, coupled with several exciting results from the past couple weeks, resulted in considerable movement among teams in the rankings released today.

The battle for a berth into the national championship draw as a top-8 team is going to be a highlight of the road to the championships for both the women and the men. Dartmouth’s double-upset of Drexel this past weekend added an extra layer of intrigue, with both Big Green teams making the jump to No. 7 in the polls.

In another important contest for Howe Cup seeding this last weekend, the Yale women secured their position at No. 4 with a win against the new No. 6, Stanford. Neither Dartmouth or Yale can rest on their laurels, however, as monumental road match-ups lie on the horizon this weekend. With Dartmouth at Cornell and Columbia and Yale at Princeton and Penn, this weekend’s results could help clarify the rankings picture for the rest of the season.

With the rankings algorithm in use, the CSA will not break ranking ties until all of the matches of the season have been played prior to the championships. This is relevant for a few cases in this first set of rankings. On the men’s side, Drexel and Rochester are currently tied in the fifth position despite Drexel’s win over Rochester during the first semester. Cornell’s run of success has moved them into a tie with George Washington at No. 12, and Middlebury and Amherst have evened out at No. 20, for now. The women have a tie of their own with three teams currently locked at No. 15 – Middlebury, Amherst, and Bates.

Many other teams exhibited slight shifts up or down the rankings now that the second half of the season has kicked into high gear. With several more regular season matches still to play and the conference championship events to follow, these rankings have a long way to go before being finalized.

The roller coaster ride could begin as early as this evening with Penn welcoming Princeton (men: No. 3 vs. No. 4; women: No. 5 vs. No. 2) and Colby hosting Bowdoin (men: No. 23 vs. No. 22; women: No. 26 vs. No. 21).

To view the full set of rankings, please visit the College Squash Team Rankings page.