Ivy rivals squashed by Tigers

The Tigers played the teams in Jadwin Gymnasium on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

“I think that on any given day, the matches could go either way. Last year, we lost some really close matches,” junior No. 3 Emery Maine said. “We knew we could beat those teams as well. We know that what happened in the season is great, but anything can happen on any given day.”

That was certainly the case on Sunday against Harvard, when five of the nine matches were thrilling battles befitting a showdown between the nation’s two best teams.

“It was really exciting. We went into it knowing that we could do it but knowing that it was going to be a really tough match,” Maine said. “Everyone showed up with their best game, so it ended up being a good game for us, but we know that we’ll have to play really well this weekend as well.”

After the even-numbered players’ matches, the teams were knotted at two. The Tigers were bolstered by a five-set win from junior No. 2 Neha Kumar and a four-set win from senior No. 6 Maggie O’Toole, who rebounded from an injury that had forced her to retire from the previous day’s match against Dartmouth. That left it up to the odd-numbered players to decide the match. Princeton did not disappoint.

The Tigers recorded 3-0 victories at the first, third and ninth spots on the ladder, erasing Harvard’s chance to take the Ivy League title back to Cambridge. The result was especially sweet for Maine, who lost the deciding match in both of Princeton’s defeats last season.

“I knew it was close when I was going on to play. I kind of like knowing that there is some pressure on me, but I try to not think about it when I play,” Maine said. “I can’t control what is happening on the other courts, so I just have to do what I can to help the team. I use the pressure to motivate myself to play well.”

The previous day’s match produced no such dramatics, as Princeton cruised to a win over the Big Green. The Tigers swept all eight of their wins.

With only one week left in the season, Princeton’s sights are set on bringing home a third consecutive national championship. The team has only three days of practice left before traveling to Harvard for a potential rematch with its league rival in the Howe Cup.

“We want the national championship more than anything,” Maine said.

For the men’s squash team, which also competed at Jadwin last weekend, it was business as usual. No. 2 Princeton (10-0, 6-0) recorded back-to-back 9-0 wins over Dartmouth (9-6, 1-5) and No. 5 Harvard (6-3, 3-2) to win its fourth straight Ivy League title and set the stage for a battle for national squash supremacy against No. 1 Trinity this weekend.

“It was an overall solid performance by the team,” sophomore Peter Sopher said. “It was encouraging, and it gave us a lot of confidence coming into the next two weeks, which are the most important of the season.”

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The win also capped a run of Ivy League dominance for the Tigers’ three senior tri-captains, Mauricio Sanchez, Kimlee Wong and Hesham El Halaby, who have been a nightmare for opponents since arriving on campus. Sanchez won 3-0 victories at the No. 1 spot on consecutive days, while Wong and El Halaby took Saturday off before returning to match their classmate’s 3-0 win against Harvard.

“The way the seniors competed represented the way they have competed over their entire careers,” Sopher said. “They took care of business and did it with style.”

Against Harvard, one of the best teams in the country, Princeton put in a performance that the Crimson will have trouble forgetting. The Tigers won every match 3-0, and no Harvard player scored more than seven points in any individual game.

“Historically, Harvard has been better than us,” Sopher said. “It shows how strong our team is this year that we were able to beat them so handily.”

The win showed that Princeton is finding its form as the team gets ready for the two most important weekends of the season. The Tigers will face off against Trinity in Jadwin this weekend before hosting the National Championships at Jadwin the following weekend. Princeton has yet to drop an individual match on its home court this season.

“People are becoming more and more confident. This weekend especially has made us more confident,” Sopher said. “We feel like we own our home courts, and the rest of the season will be played at home.”