By the end of his junior season, calling Yasser El-Halaby the Michael Jordan of college squash might be excessively complimentary — to Michael Jordan.
For a third consecutive year, the soft-spoken Cairo, Egypt native dominated his competition with remarkable ease, destroying Yale's Julian Illingworth, 9-6, 9-2, 9-1 in early March to become the first male to ever win three individual national titles in his first three seasons. He lost just one match all year — and only after staying up for two straight nights during Tiger Inn's bicker discussions.
Unfortunately for Princeton, the rest of the Orange and Black weren't quite as good.
The women's team, led by sophomore No. 1 Claire Rein-Weston, finished fourth in the season-ending Howe Cup, falling to eventual national champion Yale in the semifinals and then dropping a consolation match to Trinity.
In the individual national tournament, Rein-Weston turned in the Tigers' best performance, making a run to the finals of the consolation bracket before she was forced to retire with an injury. Freshman Carly Grabowski, who played No. 7 for Princeton during the season, won three matches in the 'B' division brackets before bowing out in the semifinals.
Exceeding Expectations
Despite the luxury of penciling El-Halaby into the top of the lineup for each match, men's head coach Bob Callahan entered the season with lowered expectations after losing five of nine projected starters before the season even began.
Freshman Martin Maierhofer, expected to play No. 2, withdrew from school to return to his native Germany, while last year's No. 2, Vincent Yu, was sidelined for the first half of the season by illness. Meanwhile, juniors Nate Beck and Dent Wilkens both took the academic year off from Princeton, while junior Will Boothby left the team to pursue other activities.
"Folks will be playing in positions they didn't expect to play in," Callahan said in early October. "It will be a challenge, but we'll see what we can do."
Early on, the Tigers struggled. Princeton lost its season opener to Cornell, 6-3, the first time in 50 years of competition between the two teams that the Big Red had defeated the Orange and Black. Slowly, though, the young Tigers gained confidence, playing well against No. 1 Trinity and nearly upsetting Harvard.
And, indeed, Princeton peaked at the perfect time — the last weekend of February, in Cambridge, Mass., during the national team tournament. Seeded No. 5, the Tigers drew a first round matchup with No. 4 Penn and crushed the stunned Quakers, 8-1, advancing to the semifinals.
There, Princeton drew Trinity, who last lost a match in 1998. Though El-Halaby won his match, the Bantams won every other contest, winning 8-1. They defeated Harvard the next day for their seventh straight national championship.
The Tigers would play once more: a rematch against Yale, who defeated Princeton 8-1 earlier in the season, with third place on the line. This time, it was the Tigers, not Bulldogs, who roared, gutting out six four or five-game victories en route to a 6-3 victory. Callahan, who has won 162 contests in his 25 years of coaching, called it one of the highlights of his career.
"Through all the adversity, the team just kept working harder and harder," Callahan said. "I am so proud of the whole team and all they have accomplished."
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