Men's squash falls to Harvard in semis of NISRA Championship

Two weeks ago, the men's squash match against Harvard came down to the final match.

Sophomore No. 3 Dan Rutherford was tied with the Crimson's Shondip Ghosh in the fifth game of the deciding ninth match.

That time Ghosh got the better of Rutherford, beating him 17-15 in the fifth and giving Harvard a 5-4 win over the Tigers.

Saturday, Rutherford was able to avenge that loss, beating Ghosh 3-2 in the semifinals of the National Intercollegiate Squash Racquets Association team championships.

The rest of the Princeton team, however, did not match its previous performance and the Tigers fell, 6-3, to the Crimson in the semifinals.

"We knew it would be a tight, close match after losing to Harvard two weeks earlier," senior No. 6 Marshall Sebring said. "Even though we lost 6-3, we very easily could have won 5-4."

The other Tigers had more trouble than Rutherford did in their semifinal matches. Sophomore No. 1 David Yik was unable to beat his Harvard opponent. Deepak Abraham was able to beat the Tigers' highly-rated sophomore easily, taking all three games.

Sophomore No. 2 Will Evans won his match against Harvard's Peter Karlen, and sophomore No. 5 Eric Pearson was the Tigers' third victor, beating up on the Crimson's Dylan Patterson.

While Princeton's top five players kept the Tigers in the match, Harvard was still able to dominate the No. 6-9 positions and decide the outcome of the match. Harvard players gave up only one game to Princeton in the No. 6 through 9 matches.

"As hard as this loss was, we played really hard and individually I think our top five had some strong performances," Sebring said.

The Tigers made it to the semifinals after cruising past Williams, 8-1, in the first round. The top seven Tigers all recorded victories to keep the Tigers in contention for the title early in the tournament.

On the third day, Princeton faced off against rival Yale in the third-place match, and the Elis came out on top, winning 5-4.

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It was once again a strong performance for the top five of the Tigers — four of whom won their matches — but the depth of the Yale lineup proved to be the deciding factor.

While the men's team was at NISRAs the women traveled to take on Trinity in a post-Howe Cup matchup.

The Bantams completed a perfect regular season by beating the Tigers, 5-4. Senior No. 1 Julia Beaver regained her form, beating top Trinity player Nina Helal, 3-1, in the marquee matchup.

Other winners for the women were senior Meredeth Quick at No. 2, junior Emily Eynon at No. 4 and senior No. 7 Rebecca Gutner.

Both the men's and the women's teams travel to the National Individual Championships this weekend in Cambridge, Mass., where Yik will try to defend the family honor by winning the title that his brother David Yik '00 took home last season.