Friday saw the first of three full days of matches of the 2020 College Squash Association National Collegiate Men’s Team Championships hosted by Harvard University, MIT, and Tufts University. Day 1 got off to a fast start in the first round of matches and maintained that momentum all the way through the evening session.

The higher seeds mostly emerged victorious on the first day of action, but there were several very close matches and a few upsets. Even with excitement at a high level during the day today, interest will increase even further tomorrow with finals berths on the line and the weekend upon us. Live streams of six courts at Harvard and live scoring in the draws can be found on the Tournament Homepage.

Potter Division

As expected, the match of the day in the Potter Division was the 4-versus-5 rematch between Princeton and Rochester. The result hinged on two five-game marathons on adjacent courts at positions number 6 and 7. Princeton emerged as the winner in both contentious matches with Maaz Khatri outlasting Rochester’s Sergio Martin for the match-clinching point. The Tigers will now meet top-seeded Harvard in the semifinals after the Crimson cruised past Drexel, 9-0.

The bottom half of the draw played out according to seed, with second-seeded Trinity and third-seeded Penn moving on to face each other tomorrow. Virginia’s impressive freshman tandem of Aly Hussein and Omar El Torkey captured the only two victories for the Cavaliers against Trinity. Yale’s 8-1 defeat to Penn was much closer than the scoreline appears, with seven of the nine matches going past three games.

Hoehn Division

For the second year in a row, the Hoehn Division played host to some of the most exciting matches of Day 1. The top half of the draw was particularly action-packed, with both matches ending in 5-4 scores. As predicted, Cornell and Franklin & Marshall’s 4-versus-5 match-up was close the whole way, coming down to the wire with the number 9 match on court. Cornell senior co-captain Jared Scherl turned things around after a first-game loss to clinch the victory for the Big Red.

Cornell will take solace knowing that their scheduled opponent for tomorrow, Dartmouth, had a tough road on the courts today too. The eighth seed, MIT, came ready to play in their home city and gave the top seed in the division everything it could handle. Dartmouth ultimately clinched the match at 5-3, but MIT’s wins in four five-game battles showed off their talent and determination. 2- and 3-seeds Columbia and Western Ontario will meet in the other semifinal after relatively comfortable victories of their own. It will be the first meeting between the two teams this season.

Summers Division

The evening session at Harvard featured a very NESCAC-heavy quartet of matches which ultimately went the way of the higher seeded teams. Second seed Naval Academy emerged with the closest victory of the night, riding the strength of the top of the lineup with wins in positions one through five. Navy will meet 3-seed Middlebury in the next round in a rematch of their regular season tilt, which Navy won. Middlebury outlasted Amherst for the third time this season, 6-3.

In the top half of the draw, 1-seed Williams and 4-seed Bates each captured 8-1 victories to move on to the semifinals. Single wins in the bottom third of the lineup could not propel Tufts and Colby closer to victory, so it is Williams and Bates who will vie for shot at the final tomorrow night.

Conroy Division

The Conroy Division matches were the first ones on court for the tournament this morning, and they got things off to the right start, including one of the few upsets of Day 1. In a rematch of their 5-4 showdown during the season, 3-seed Wesleyan and 6-seed Chatham battled tooth-and-nail to the end in this match as well. In the well-contested decider at number 5, Chatham’s stalwart Vinicius Muniz earned a four-game win and the final point for the Chatham upset. Second seed Hamilton will now be on alert tomorrow facing Chatham after they dispatched Haverford 9-0 in their quarterfinal.

In the top half of the draw, top seed Dickinson raced away from an upstart Cal-Berkeley squad, ultimately capturing a comfortable 8-1 win. Tomorrow, Dickinson will face Connecticut College, who overcame three losses at the top of their ladder against 5-seed St. Lawrence. Dickinson sneaked by Conn College, 5-4, back in late November.

Chaffee Division

The top three seeds in the Chaffee Division – Hobart College, Fordham University, and New York University – cruised to comfortable victories in the first round of action at MIT this afternoon. The match of the division today came in the 4-versus-5 match-up between Denison and Northeastern. The teams were evenly matched, with each squad earning four victories, but it was Denison’s default at the number 9 position that handed fifth-seeded Northeastern the mini-upset. Fordham and NYU will bring their Big Apple rivalry to Beantown in one semifinal tomorrow, while Northeastern advances to meet top-seeded Hobart.

Serues Division

The evening session at MIT included four matches among Serues Division teams who traveled in from all around the country. Once again, three of the top four seeds prevailed in the opening round matches, including top-seed Bucknell University, 2-seed Georgetown University, and fourth-seeded University of Richmond. Sixth-seeded Boston University, another squad enjoying playing close to home, upended the 3-seed Stanford in fairly comfortable fashion, 7-2. Stanford tried to keep in close, winning one match in each of the first two waves, but BU shut the door in the third wave, winning all three contests.

Hawthorn Division

Every team in the 10-team Hawthorn Division was in action at Tufts University’s new squash center on Friday evening. Play-in matches between the four lowest seeded teams started the day, with 7-seed Indiana University and 9-seed Lafayette College moving on to the main draw. Seeds held true in the middle of the draw, where third seed Duke and fourth seed Lehigh clinched semifinal berths. In the nightcap matches, the first round of play appeared to help the lower seeds as Indiana and Lafayette pushed for their second victories of the day. Lafayette was able to earn the upset over top-seeded Notre Dame, but 2-seed Vassar held off a hard-charging Indiana squad, 5-4. In tomorrow semifinals, Lehigh and Lafayette bring their local rivalry to town while Vassar takes on Duke in the lower half of the main draw.

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The 2020 College Squash Association National Collegiate Men’s Team Championships are scheduled to begin on Friday, Friday 28, 2020. Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tufts University will be the host venues for the tournament..

Fans of the event should visit the Tournament Homepage for important information, including the draws with live scoring, links to the live webcast of 6 of Harvard’s courts, and the order of play during the weekend. The live stream links will be active beginning on Friday morning.

58 teams from around the country will participate in the championships and compete across seven divisions: Potter Division (teams ranked No. 1-8)—which determines the team national champion, Hoehn Division (9-16), Summers Division (17-24), Conroy Division (25-32), Chaffee Division (33-40), Serues Division (41-48), and Hawthorn Division (49-58).

Harvard University, the top-ranked team throughout the season this year, ran the table during the regular season and are the heavy favorites to capture their second straight Potter Cup championship. Crimson players have lost only four individual matches all season on their way to an undefeated record, and they will aim to carry that impressive momentum on to their home courts this weekend with the national championship on the line.

Standing in their way are seven other Potter division teams eager to either spoil the party or make a mark in their own program’s history books. Second-seeded Trinity College recognizes the dominance exhibited by Harvard and will be prepared to do everything they can to bring the trophy back to Hartford. The 3- and 4-seeds are University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, two talented squads hungry for their second shots at the defending champions this season.

Filling out the bottom of the Potter Division draw in ranked order are University of Rochester, Yale University, debutants University of Virginia, and Drexel University. Rochester and Yale have been here before and will rely on that experience in their attempts at semifinal berths. Virginia’s and Drexel’s presence in the top draw, not likely their last, shows the exciting expansion of the college game.

Like in the Howe Cup final this past weekend, the Potter Cup final scheduled for Sunday afternoon at Harvard will be played to decision. That is, once a team earns five individual match wins, the championship is clinched and the team match will end. (Individual matches still on court may be played to completion, but no new matches should commence.) Playing to decision in the national team championship finals is a pilot initiative voted in by the coaches and approved by the CSA Board of Directors on a provisional basis.

In a topsy-turvy season that saw many upsets play out, Dartmouth and Columbia, the ninth- and tenth-ranked teams were the odd ones out in the Potter Cup mix. Instead, they will fight for some hardware of their own, with the Hoehn Cup on the line. Defending Hoehn Cup champions George Washington are back in the draw again, but they have a tough first-round match-up with Western Ontario. Cornell (4-seed) and Franklin & Marshall (5) will renew their budding rivalry in the first round, with the winner meeting the victor between Dartmouth and MIT.

If fans noticed how exciting the NESCAC Men’s Championships were, they should be in for a treat again with the Summers Division. Seven of the eight teams in the Summers draw are NESCAC members, with many already having played each other twice this season. Williams is the top seed, drawing 8-seed Tufts in the first round. The only stranger in this group is the U.S. Naval Academy, which checks in as the 2-seed with a match against Bowdoin College. The other two quarterfinals are all-NESCAC ties: Bates and Colby in the 4-5 match-up and Middlebury and Amherst as the third and sixth seeds, respectively.

Similar to some of the other draws, the top seed in the Conroy Divsion – Dickinson College – arrives in Boston with a chip on their shoulder after just missing out on a berth in the Summers Division. Dickinson will be on the hunt for their second Conroy Cup in a row, but they will have some tough competition arriving from all around the country. Their first round opponent is the highest ranked club team in the tournament, University of California-Berkeley. The winner of that match will meet the Conn College-St. Lawrence winner on Saturday. 6-seed Chatham University is a team to keep an eye on with a big win streak to start the season, but they will have to reverse their regular season result against Wesleyan to move on in the winner’s bracket. Hamilton and Haverford are the second and seventh seeds, respectively.

Hobart College had an up-and-down year battling injuries much of the way, but their sights are set on the Chaffee Cup as the top seed this season. Defending Chaffee Cup champions Fordham will want to have their say, however, as they enter the tournament as the second seed in the division. Every opening round match in the division is a rematch from earlier in the season, with the lower seeds – like Northeastern, University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, and Bard – looking to pull the upset when it counts.

Although the Serues Division is seeded the same way as the other divisions, it is difficult to identify a clear favorite. Teams will be traveling in from as far away as California (Stanford University), Michigan (University of Michigan), and North Carolina (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) to create the most geographically diverse division in the tournament. Perennial top club contenders Bucknell and Georgetown are the top two seeds, but it seems that the teams with their top players committed and healthy will ultimately prevail this weekend. University of Richmond is in the draw as well, looking for their third Serues Cup win in four years.

The Hawthorn Division will be staged primarily at Tufts University’s brand new squash center with 10 teams vying for the end-of-season hardware. All teams will commence play on Friday evening, with Notre Dame and Vassar earning the top two seeds. Colgate is the sixth seed in the division and will aim to repeat as Hawthorn Cup champions. The division is comprised of mostly veteran teams, but one team, Xavier University, will be making their CSA Men’s Team Championships debut this weekend.