By sweeping Harvard last Sunday, the men’s squash team completed what may be the most dominant season in Ivy League history. The team defeated each opponent 9-0, as the top nine players in the lineup went a combined 54-0 against players from other Ivy League schools.
Now, the team turns its attention to the College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championship, which will take place this weekend at Harvard’s Murr Center. Princeton goes into the tournament as the No. 2 seed. Trinity is seeded No.1, having beaten Princeton 6-3 on its way to an undefeated season.
Princeton has a history of performing well at the CSA Championships. In the 2006 and 2007 championships, Princeton reached the finals before being defeated by Trinity, which has won the title for nine consecutive seasons.
“Obviously, this team isn’t the same team as either the 2006 or the 2007 team,” head coach Bob Callahan ’77 said.
Callahan insists that this year’s team is markedly different from the previous two squads, noting that this year’s team has a different mentality from both the 2006 squad, led by the dominant Yasser El Halaby ’06, that lost 5-4 in the finals, as well as the 2007 team that defeated Harvard in the semifinals but was blanked in the championship match.
Senior co-captain Tom McKay also noted that this year’s group has a different approach.
“Two years ago, we were so crushed by the dramatic regular-season loss to Trinity that we ended up losing to Yale three days later and barely squeaking by Harvard,” McKay said. “This year, we responded well to another close loss to Trinity. We beat our Ivy League opponents decisively.”
Though Callahan concedes that, on paper, this year’s team appears similar to the previous two — all three won Ivy League titles and lost to Trinity during the regular season — he still maintains that this team has a unique makeup.
“We have a remarkably unified group this year,” Callahan said. “Our trip to Egypt and the leadership shown by co-captains Tom McKay and [senior] Brendon Bascom are the two factors that stand out in my mind.”
McKay agrees that this years’s team is different from past squads, both in terms of team unity and its approach to the game.
“This year, we focused on fitness more than in past years, and that has paid off,” McKay said. “In past years we would often lose the odd match just because someone got tired or was having a bad day, but this year we have been very strong and consistent.”
Looking ahead to this weekend, both Callahan and McKay stress that the team’s conditioning and consistency will be crucial to its success.
“Because it’s a cumulative event, because it’s a cumulative wear and tear, we need to be as efficient as possible in the quarterfinals and the semifinals so that if things go well we can have good energy reserves in the finals,” Callahan said.
McKay agreed, noting that the team must play its best squash in the first two rounds to both advance to the finals and give themselves the best shot in a potential final-round matchup with Trinity on Sunday afternoon. Despite the Bantams’ earlier win over Princeton, the Tigers remain unintimidated.
And though Callahan and McKay refuse to predict what will happen, both are confident that the team has done everything in its power to prepare.
“We’re going in with a real determination to play our best and to compete as well as we possibly can, whatever result that brings,” Callahan said.
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