Women's Squash: Princeton falls to Yale in quarters of Howe Cup

The women’s squash team was rested and ready for this past weekend’s national championship tournament. It had confidence that it could beat its first-round opponent, Yale, since it had already done so in the regular season. The seniors knew what it felt like to win it all, having done so the previous three seasons. This year, however, No. 4 Princeton (9-5 overall, 4-2 Ivy League) would not bring home the Howe Cup for a fourth straight year. The Tigers fell to No. 5 Yale (10-6, 3-3) in the quarterfinals of the tournament. Princeton followed the loss with wins over No. 8 Williams (15-9) and No. 7 Stanford (8-7) to take fifth in the consolation bracket.

On Friday, Princeton faced the Bulldogs in the quarterfinals of the tournament. The Tigers had defeated Yale 5-4 in their regular season matchup, which was held at Princeton. Yale came out firing and won the first three matches of the day, but Princeton came right back and won the next three to even the score.

“The girls in the second round really stepped up,” senior No. 6 and tri-captain Kaitlin Sennat said. “They did a great job of rallying, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”

Yale went on to win the final three matches of the day and moved on to the semifinals with its 6-3 win. The tournament was held at Yale, which gave the Bulldogs home-court advantage and the crowd to go with it.

“I definitely had to stay focused and block [the crowd] out of my head,” freshman No. 2 Julie Cerullo said.

Cerullo was one of the three winners on Friday. She had beaten her opponent, Alia Aziz, in Ivy Scrimmages but had lost to her during the regular season.

“I was eager to get back and take revenge on her,” Cerullo said.

Senior No. 5 Neha Kumar and sophomore No. 8 Katie Giovinazzo both won in three games as the team swept the second shift, but the Tigers could not come up with two more wins to take the match.

“We did the best we could, but I guess we just didn’t have it on Friday,” Sennat said.

The tournament continued on Saturday, when the Tigers played No. 8 Williams. Senior No. 4 and tri-captain Emery Maine had played on Friday despite a stress fracture in her foot but sat out the match on Saturday because of the pain. Kumar also sat out on Saturday due to injury, which left the women with only eight players. As a result, Princeton forfeited the No. 9 spot and was down 1-0 before anyone stepped on the court.

“It’s always tough going in when you automatically have one loss,” Cerullo said.

This did not seem to faze the Tigers, however: They won all but one of the remaining eight matches.

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The only loss came at the top of the ladder in a highly competitive match between senior No. 1 and tri-captain Amanda Siebert and Williams’ Toby Eyre.

Siebert had defeated Eyre two weeks earlier in five games, but this time Eyre walked away with a five-game victory. The match was extremely competitive, and one of the games ended with a final score of 18-16.

“It was one of the highest-scoring games I’ve ever seen played,” Cerullo said.

The Tigers’ final match of the season was against Stanford, which was also the first team they played back in November. The women had lost that match 6-3.

“I think the girls were looking for a bit of revenge,” Sennat said.

They got it this time by defeating seventh-ranked Stanford 8-1 to claim fifth place in the tournament. For the first time in three years, the Tigers ended the season without an Ivy League or national title.

“It was a little disappointing, but we were happy that we were able to finish strong,” Cerullo said.

Though the team is done competing together, the women will take to the courts again this weekend in the individual championships at Trinity in Hartford, Conn.