Titles were awarded across five divisions Sunday in the final day of the 2019 College Squash Association Women’s Team National Championships at Trinity College and Wesleyan University. The Harvard women’s team captured the Women’s National Team Championship—the Howe Cup—in dominant fashion with a 9-0 finals win over Trinity. The championship was Harvard’s 19th Howe Cup and their fifth in a row.

Full results for the competition are available at the Tournament Home Page.

Howe Division

Through 12 matches this season, top-seeded Harvard had not lost an individual match all season and carried a 65-match winning streak into Sunday’s final against Trinity. Trinity, playing on their home courts and with plenty of tournament final experience of their own, were unfazed and put an early scare into Harvard’s first three players.

Trinity’s No. 3 senior Salma Alam Eldin started things on the right foot with a win in the first game against Harvard’s Amelia Henley and the No. 6 and 9 matches went to the brink before Harvard captured each of those first two games.  The No. 3 match stayed tight in Game 2, with Henley winning in extra points 13-11.  Meanwhile, Harvard’s Hana Moataz and Hannah Craig each settled down to win their matches in three games.  Alam Eldin and Henley battled throughout the match, but it was the Harvard player who emerged victorious.

The 3-0 lead seemed to help build Harvard’s confidence and the second wave of players came out firing. No. 5 Amina Yousry made quick work of her match, and then things lined up for Harvard’s senior co-captain No. 8 Sophie Mehta to clinch the victory for the Crimson. Mehta prevailed in three games, and the celebration was on again for the Harvard women.

With all of the other matches finished and the championship won, all attention turned to the No. 1 match between Harvard’s senior co-captain and Betty Richey Award finalist Sabrina Sobhy and Trinity’s first-year Sarahi Lopez Dominguez.  In her first Howe Cup match, the rookie from Trinity impressed, taking the first game from Harvard’s veteran.  Sobhy settled down after that, however, and took control of the match, winning the ninth team point in four games.

In other Howe Division matches, Stanford upset Princeton to clinch a Top-3 ranking for the first time in program history, Yale defeated Columbia, and Drexel upset local rivals Penn.

Kurtz Cup

The Kurtz Cup final featured Ivy League rivals Dartmouth, the top seed, and Cornell, the No. 3 seed.  The back-and-forth affair included several lead changes and seven matches that progressed past the minimum three games.  Dartmouth jumped out to a 2-1 lead in the early going, but Cornell clawed back into it with a 2-1 wave of their own in the second round.

In the critical third wave, Cornell’s No. 1 put them on the brink of victory. And again, with victory on the line, the experience of a senior co-captain paid dividends. Cornell’s No. 7 Lucy Martin came back in the fifth game against Dartmouth’s Darden Gildea to clinch the championship.

This is Cornell’s first Kurtz Cup Championship since 2007.

Walker Division

Bates returned to the Walker Division championship match looking to repeat as champions against a Tufts squad that has impressed all year long.  The two teams had met twice this year – once during the regular season and once in the NESCAC Championships – and Tufts had won both contests in close results.

Bates got the start it needed from its first three players on court.  All three earned victories, including a big five-game win at No. 6 by Natasha Jones, which may have swung the momentum in Bates’s favor for good. Tufts’s Chloe Kantor scored a quick victory at No. 8, but Bates’s No. 2 Kristyna Alexova won in three games and their No. 5 Katherine Manternach won another close 4-gamer to reach the necessary five team points for the win.  The final score of the match was 6-3.

Bates has now won the Walker Cup in three of the last four years after having not won it before 2016.

Epps Division

With the top two seeds eliminated in the semifinals, the Epps Division final featured third seed William Smith and fourth seed Connecticut College.  The two teams did not meet during the regular season, so each was looking to set the tone early for the match.  Conn captured the early momentum with quick wins at Nos. 6 and 9, and they moved ahead early in the No. 5 and 8 matches while the No. 3 match went to a fourth game.  William Smith got on the team scoreboard with the win at No. 3, but Conn College’s depth proved to be too much in the end.  Despite William Smith’s additional victories at positions 1 and 2, the Camels won the lower six positions for a convincing 6-3 Finals victory.

Conn College will be the newest team to add their name to list of Epps Division winners, their first in program history.

E Division

After the first two days of matches at Wesleyan University, top-seeded Vassar and 6-seed Bowdoin played the E Division final at Trinity and staged a great battle. The match was close to start with two of the first three matches going to four games, but Vassar captured all three wins for a crucial early lead. Vassar did not look back from there, clinching the championship title in the next wave, going 2-1.  Bowdoin won an additional match at the No. 1 position, but Vassar came home with the 7-2 win.  Vassar’s win marked the first E Division championship for their program.

Teams at the CSA Women’s Team National Championships played semifinal matches across five divisions on Saturday.  All division finals will be played at Trinity College tomorrow, beginning at 8:30 a.m.

Before the Howe Division semifinals on Saturday, the CSA also celebrated the induction of three members of the College Squash Hall of Fame Class of 2019 – Jordanna Fraiberg, Amina Helal, and Wendy Bartlett.

Follow full results and play throughout the weekend at the Tournament Page, including live streaming and live scores through Club Locker.

Howe Division

Top-seeded Harvard exerted their dominance over another opponent in the Howe Cup semifinal on Saturday, but it was the 2-versus-3 semifinal that grabbed the headlines. Coming off the CSA Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where two members of the Trinity Squash family were celebrated, Trinity had the home crowd behind them in the contest with Princeton. Princeton won a tight 5-4 match at Trinity during the regular season, but Trinity rose to the occasion, scoring a major 7-2 victory over the second-seeded Tigers.

The early matches appeared to be a sign of things to come, with two of the three progressing to hotly contested five games. Each team won one of the five-game battles, and with Princeton’s win at No. 9, the Tigers had a 2-1 lead. The flow of the match changed considerably from that point forward, however, as one Trinity player after another captured a 3-0 victory.  In the end, Trinity had won six straight matches and the right to meet Harvard in Sunday’s National Championship Final.

Harvard got off to a fast start against Stanford and never looked back.  Stanford’s Caroline Neave, the hero of Friday’s victory over Yale, was the lone Cardinal player to win a game against the talented Harvard lineup. The Harvard-Trinity finals match-up will be a rematch of their regular season contest, which Harvard won 9-0.

Kurtz Division

The closest match of the day came in the Kurtz Division semifinal between No. 2 Virginia and No. 3 Cornell.  Both teams had a very different construction from when they met early in the season in December, but clearly the changes only brought the result closer together.  Five of the first six matches went to five games.  Cornell lost two of the first three five-gamers, but responded to win the next two, creating a 4-2 lead after the first two waves. Cornell’s No. 1 player Siva Subramaniam promptly secured the victory in three games and the spot in Kurtz final.

Dartmouth and Brown, the other two Kurtz semifinalists, played a very close 5-4 contest as a part of the regular season Ivy League schedule, and the division final berth that was on the line ratcheted up the pressure.  The tide of the match ultimately turned in Dartmouth’s favor during the second wave of matches when the Big Green pulled out two five-game victories. Dartmouth clinched victories in the final three matches, taking the win 7-2. Dartmouth and Cornell met in mid-January with the Big Green capturing a close 5-4 victory.

Walker Division

Tufts University, having almost crept into the Kurtz Division at the end of the regular season, exhibited their strength as the top seed in the Walker Division with a strong 7-2 victory over 4-seed Franklin & Marshall. F&M won two of the top three matches, but their bottom of the ladder was no match for Tufts’s depth. Rachel Windreich, Tufts’s No. 6, took the victory in extra points in the fifth game to help give Tufts an early 2-1 lead that they would not relinquish.

Very early on in the season, Dickinson and Bates met during the latter’s southern road trip, and Dickinson defended home court in a 5-4 win. Saturday evening saw a completely different result, however, with Bates exhibiting dominance from the very first match.  Three matches went to five games, including a battle at No. 9 won by Bates which set the tone for the rest of the match. Bates emerged victorious in all three of those contests and ran away with the win from there.

Epps Division

The Epps Division was flipped upside down on semifinals day, with both of the top seeds falling in tightly contested matches. Top seed Colby faced 4-seed Connecticut College for the third time this season, and the mantra that it is hard to beat a team three times in one season held true.  Conn jumped out to an important early lead, going 3-0 in the first wave of matches.  Then, they promptly clinched the victory with two more wins in quick succession.  Colby fought back to win three matches later in the match, but the outcome was no longer in doubt.

William Smith also scored the upset, taking down Haverford in the 2-versus-3 match-up. The underdogs captured the early momentum, going 2-1 in the first wave, including a big five-game comeback victory by William Smith’s No. 3 Michaelann Denton.  Matches in positions five through nine all went past the minimum three games, with William Smith winning three of them. The Herons then used the strength of the top of their lineup to close out the win.

E Division

In the morning’s quarterfinal matches, the four winners clearly earned their spots in semis with emphatic 9-0 victories. The top two seeds Vassar and Washington University in St. Louis held their seedings with ease, but 3-seed Wellesley and 4-seed Fordham suffered different fates.  Sixth seed Bowdoin came off their play-in match from Friday evening with energy and knocked off Wellesley, while Colgate handled Fordham in the first match of the day.

E Division top seed Vassar continued their run of success in the semifinal match against Colgate.  Going 2-1 in each of the three waves, Vassar earned the finals berth comfortably. Bowdoin, the sixth seed who came into the tournament winless, ran their winning streak to three games with their 6-3 victory over 2-seed Wash. U. Bowdoin’s No. 9 Catherine Adams won a critical five-game early victory in the first wave which sparked the momentum and propelled the team to the finals-clinching victory.