Victor Crouin, a first-year, and Georgina Kennedy, a junior, both from Harvard, earned 2019 College Squash Association (CSA) Individual National Championships at the Nicol Squash Club in Providence, Rhode Island on Sunday. This is Kennedy’s second Ramsay Cup win in three years, while Crouin captured the Pool Trophy in his first year with the Harvard program.

Kennedy, the third seed in the Ramsay Cup draw, entered her third Ramsay final in three years after outlasting familiar foe Reeham Sedky of Penn in a grueling five-game semifinal. While she didn’t appear to show many ill-effects from the long match in the first game of the final, her opponent – the 5-seed from Cornell, Sivasangari Subramaniam – came out firing to win the first game 11-9. Subramaniam had upset top-seeded Sabrina Sobhy in her semifinal and seemed unfazed by the gravity of the moment. However, a concerning trend of errors into the tin during Subramaniam’s first game would turn out to be the difference in the final result. In the subsequent games, Kennedy started to match Subramaniam’s level of shot-making and deception, taking the tight second game 11-8. With momentum on her side and her opponent continuing to cut things too close in the front court, Kennedy maintained her high pressure all the way to a championship victory.

Like the women’s match-up, the Crouin-El-Gawarhy pairing was an unknown entity without a previous match between the two players. On paper, it was a clash of styles with El-Gawarhy bringing a flair for the dramatic in contrast with Crouin’s simplicity and workmanlike nature. It was Crouin’s simple approach and eagerness to take the volley early which lead to a first-game victory, 11-6. As many of Crouin’s other opponents have discovered over the course of his first year, his positioning, read on the ball, and thoughtful shot-making are extremely difficult to overcome.  El-Gawarhy found the same to be true in Sunday’s final, as he could never quite overcome the young Frenchman. Crouin maintained his stellar play through the end, clinching the championship with 11-6, 11-7 final game scores.

Holleran (Women’s B) and Molloy (Men’s B) Division finals featured players aiming to clinch the final eight Second Team All-America awards. Showing the competitiveness of those matches and the high quality of the players, seven of the eight matches progressed beyond the minimum three games. The Trinity women finished the tournament especially strong, capturing three of the four Holleran Division titles, including Jennifer Haley’s five-game triumph over Harvard’s Sophie Mehta. Four players from four different schools – Princeton, St. Lawrence, Dartmouth, and Drexel – won the Molloy Division championships.  Dartmouth’s Matt Giegerich took the men’s match of the day in five games against Cornell’s Charles Culhane.

Final Results:

Pool Trophy (Men’s National Championship)
Victor Crouin (Harvard) d. Mohamed El-Gawarhy (St. Lawrence) 11-6, 11-6, 11-7

Ramsay Cup (Women’s National Championship)
Georgina Kennedy (Harvard) d. Sivasangari Subramaniam (Cornell) 9-11, 11-8, 11-2, 11-4

Molloy (Men’s B) Divisions
North: Adhitya Raghavan (Princeton) d. David Yacobucci (Penn) 11-13, 11-6, 12-10, 11-6
South: Enzo Corigliano (St. Lawrence) d. Harrison Gill (Yale) 14-12, 11-4, 11-8
East: Matt Giegerich (Dartmouth) d. Charles Culhane (Cornell) 9-11, 11-5, 6-11, 11-1, 11-5
West: Bransten Ming (Drexel) d. Matthew Toth (Rochester) 11-5, 5-11, 11-9, 11-5

Holleran (Women’s B) Divisions
North: Akanksha Salunkhe (Trinity) d. Mihiliya Kalahe Arachchige (Mount Holyoke) 9-11, 11-9, 11-5, 11-9
South: Vanessa Raj (Trinity) d. Emma Jinks (Virginia) 11-7, 9-11, 11-8, 11-7
East: Eleonore Evans (Harvard) d. Elle Ruggiero (Princeton) 11-9, 12-10, 7-11, 12-14, 11-9
West: Jennifer Haley (Trinity) d. Sophie Mehta (Harvard) 8-11, 11-9, 3-11, 11-7, 11-4

Saturday is semifinals day at the 2019 CSA Individual National Championships, with players in ten divisions competing for a place in their respective finals. All of the finals will be contested on Sunday with two national titles and 40 All-American awards (20 women and 20 men) up for grabs.

In Ramsay Cup (women’s A Division) play, undefeated top seed Sabrina Sobhy from Harvard finally met her match in the first semifinal.  Newcomer Sivasangari Subramaniam from Cornell announced her presence on the college scene, taking the first two games from the favored Sobhy. Sobhy jumped out to a big lead in Game 3 hoping to create some momentum. Though she won that game 11-7, Subramaniam recovered to clinch the upset and her finals berth with a fourth game win.

The second semifinal featured a rematch of the last two Ramsay Cup finals between 2017 champion Georgina Kennedy of Harvard and 2018 champion Reeham Sedky of Penn. Not surprisingly, the match lived up to its billing and produced the most competitive play of the day. Kennedy grabbed the first game, but Sedky powered back to take the next two. Kennedy bounced back herself to take the fourth game, putting everything on the result of the decisive fifth game. Kennedy roared out to a 6-2 lead, but Sedky recovered with a run of her own to bring the score to 7-6 Kennedy. In a final push to clinch the second upset victory of the women’s semifinals and a berth in the finals, Kennedy rattled off four straight points to win 11-6 in the fifth.

The Pool Trophy (men’s A Division) competition was held earlier in the day, with high level squash on display from the first point. No. 9 seed Mohamed El-Gawarhy of St. Lawrence continued his run of impressive form against fourth seed Andrew Douglas of Penn. El-Gawarhy’s shot-making ability appeared to be the difference in a cleanly played match, and he captured the first Pool final berth in a 3-0 victory. In the second semifinal, Harvard’s No. 2 and highest remaining seed, Victor Crouin, put on another masterful display against 6-seed Spencer Lovejoy of Yale. Lovejoy’s five-game quarterfinal battle on Friday evening could not have helped in a match which required maximum energy output, and Crouin cruised to the 3-0 win.

In the Pool and Ramsay consolation draws, four athletes earned First Team All-American honors by earning consolation finals berths. Stanford’s Elena Wagenmans and Yale’s Lucy Beecroft advanced on the women’s side, while Harvard’s Marwan Tarek and Penn’s Aly Abou El Einen did so for the men.

The Holleran and Molloy Divisions – the B Divisions for the women and men, respectively – will stage their finals on Sunday as well.  The winner of each final will be included on the Second Team All-America honoree list.

Holleran North: Mihiliya Kalahe Arachchige (Mount Holyoke) vs. Akanksha Salunkhe (Trinity)
Holleran South: Emma Jinks (Virginia) vs. Vanessa Raj (Trinity)
Holleran East: Eleonore Evans (Harvard) vs. Elle Ruggiero (Princeton)
Holleran West: Sophie Mehta (Harvard) vs. Jennifer Haley (Trinity)

Molloy North: Adhitya Raghavan (Princeton) vs. David Yacobucci (Penn)
Molloy South: Enzo Corigliano (St. Lawrence) vs. Harrison Gill (Yale)
Molloy East: Matt Giegerich (Dartmouth) vs. Charles Culhane (Cornell)
Molloy West: Bransten Ming (Drexel) vs. Matthew Toth (Rochester)

Follow all of the action live on Sunday on the 2019 CSA Individual National Championships page, including live streaming from the Nicol Squash Club, and live scores through Club Locker for each final.

On the first day of competition at the 2019 College Squash Association (CSA) Individual National Championships, the women’s top division, the Ramsay Division, played mostly to seed while the men’s Pool Division – the top draw – saw a few attention-grabbing upsets.

The first Pool Division match of the day turned out to be a sign of things to come when the lowest seed in the draw – 16-seed Sam Scherl of Harvard – jumped out to a 2-0 lead over top seed Ashley Davies of Rochester. Davies clawed his way back into that match, ultimately outlasting Scherl for the victory, but the energy expended to come back would take its toll on Davies in his quarterfinal match against St. Lawrence’s 9-seed Mohamed El-Gawarhy. In a highly charged match that went back and forth, it was El-Gawarhy who was better able to control his emotions and to find the winning formula to hand Davies his first loss of the season. Meeting El-Gawarhy in Saturday’s semifinal is University of Pennsylvania’s fourth seed Andrew Douglas, who overcame a long delay due to a bleeding injury to dispatch No. 5 Kush Kumar of Trinity in the quarterfinal.

No. 2 seed Victor Crouin, the freshman from Harvard, cruised to the semifinal in the bottom half of the draw, surrendering only 22 points total over his first two matches. Yale’s Spencer Lovejoy, the sixth seed, is the fourth semifinalist and will face off with Crouin in a classic Harvard-Yale match-up. Lovejoy took down Trinity’s Thoboki Mohohlo in the first round, and then shocked the viewing crowd with a masterful five-game victory over Columbia’s No. 3 seed, Velavan Senthilkumar. In a rematch of Senthilkumar’s 3-0 stroll over Lovejoy during the regular season, the Yale Bulldog played consistent squash and hit the winning shots when it mattered to come back from his 2-1 deficit.

The Ramsay Division draw had considerably less drama during Friday’s action than the Pool Division, with the top three seeds clinching semifinals berths, joined by the 5-seed.  In a rematch of the 2017 and 2018 Ramsay Cup finals, No. 2 Reeham Sedky from Penn and No. 3 Georgina Kennedy from Harvard will clash with a spot in the final on the line. Both players advanced with two efficient 3-0 wins apiece. Top seed Sabrina Sobhy of Harvard will meet the only new face left on the women’s side, Cornell’s first-year Sivasangari Subramaniam. Despite an early game loss in the first round to Yale’s Helen Teegan, Sobhy recovered for a smooth progression to the semis.  Subramaniam earned a 3-0 win in the first round and exhibited her top-level prowess with a convincing 3-1 win over Trinity’s No. 4 seed Sarahi Lopez Dominguez.

Action starts at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning with all of the divisions’ consolation semifinals before moving on to the championship semifinals in the afternoon. The Pool semifinals begin at 1:30 p.m. with the Ramsay semifinals directly following. Check out the Tournament Home page for live streaming, draw listings, and live results throughout the tournament.