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Women's squash ends season with thriller over Trinity

The Princeton women’s squash team won its sixth consecutive game this past weekend, claiming a thriller over fourth-ranked Trinity (11-4 overall).

The Tigers entered the game ranked third and coming off wins against Cornell and Columbia. However, this final matchup before the Howe Cup would prove crucial as a concluding test for Princeton’s regular season.

The team, led by senior Rachel Leizman, proved equal to the task.

The contest was an up-and-down affair from the outset: Trinity’s Kanzy El Defrawy defeated rising sophomore star Olivia Fiechter 3-0, although the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year held the first set close and battled on to the end. However, the Tigers bounced back, with senior Tara Harrington recovering from an initial loss to win the No. 8 match 3-1 and junior Maria Elena Ubina drawing out a back-and-forth battle against Trinity’s Raneem Sharaf to pull off a 3-2 win at No. 2.

However, the battle was far from over. Trinity took spots four, five and six, with Anna Kimberley taking a 3-1 match against sophomore Lindsey Scott, Salma El Defrawy pulling off a 3-0 win over Princeton junior Alexandra Toth and Jennifer Haley executing a 3-1 triumph over sophomore Kira Keating.

With the game at stake, Princeton’s freshmen stepped up. Freshman Samantha Chai swept through Sachika Balvani 3-0. Her fellow rookie, Isabel Hirshberg, then won a thriller over Karolina Holinkova. Hirshberg found herself in trouble after dropping the first two sets but came back with an 11-9 thriller in the third contest, an 11-6 victory to make it 2-2 and finally a convincing 11-1 statement to finish off her opponent.

This pair of wins tied the contest at 4-4, leaving the fate of the game to Leizman. However, the four-year starter remained unfazed; she had experience with such deciding moments, having once pulled off a five-game thriller against Harvard to win the 2013 Ivy League championship. The senior dropped her first set 9-11 against Trinity’s Julia Le Coq but remained cool under pressure and went on to even up the match with an 11-3 win. From there, Leizman slowly but surely took control of the match, edging out an 11-9 victory in the third set and icing her match — and the overall contest — with another 11-9 win that clinched a 3-1 match. The final verdict: Tigers 5, Trinity 4.

After the game, Princeton coach Gail Ramsay praised the team and her seniors in particular for the strong win.

"I was thrilled to see the team play so well today," she asserted. "I thought we were closely matched. We were able to pull out five matches and I think on another day we could have found a couple more W’s. Rachel put in an impressive, pressured performance. She knew it was up to her to pull it out and she played a near-perfect tactical match. What a great way to close out her dual match career!"

The win concludes the Tigers’ regular season, leaving them with an 11-2 overall mark and a 5-2 Ivy League record. Princeton will travel to New Haven this Friday to begin three days of competition for the Howe Cup, the national championship tournament for collegiate women’s squash.

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