Squash: No. 3 Tigers recover for weekend sweep

“I was debating whether or not to play on Saturday,” Letourneau said. “Basically it sort of came down to, if I don’t play Saturday, I can’t play Sunday. I needed to play and test out my body since I’d been in bed for three days straight.”

Against Dartmouth’s Nick Sisodia, Letourneau used an aggressive game plan to capture a quick 3-0 win. On Sunday, Letourneau went the distance, trading games with Harvard’s Reed Endresen before mustering one final run to pull out a 3-2 victory.

Earlier this season, Princeton, playing without sophomore No. 1 Todd Harrity, lost to Harvard 5-4 at Ivy Scrimmages, the league’s annual preseason tournament. Back in the familiar basement of Jadwin Gymnasium, however, the Tigers returned the favor to the Crimson.

“I think the guys competed really well this weekend,” Letourneau said. “Winning matches that we were expected to win and winning them convincingly is something to be proud of.”

A number of Tigers recorded their most impressive performances of the season. In particular, junior No. 3 Chris Callis topped Harvard’s Richard Hill — a player who had beaten him twice in the past two years — by a decisive 3-0.

“Chris played a very confident and strong game that completely overpowered Richard Hill, who can be a nightmare to play if your game isn’t flowing properly, as Chris knows from past experience,” junior No. 4 Kelly Shannon said. “Beating Richard was crucial to the team’s success and a big personal statement in how well [Callis] is playing.”

In addition, senior No. 5 and co-captain Peter Sopher recorded a pair of 3-0 victories against tricky opponents, and senior No. 9 Nikhil Seth gained a modicum of revenge with a 3-1 win against Harvard’s Jason Michas, to whom he had lost earlier this season. Harrity, the nation’s top-ranked player, continued his undefeated season with a pair of straight-set wins against top-12 opponents.

The two Ivy victories erased some of the sting from the previous weekend, when the Tigers lost 5-4 to No. 2 Yale and provided the team with some much-needed confidence before its biggest weekend of the regular season. On Saturday, Princeton faces No. 4 Rochester before squaring off with No. 1 Trinity the following day. Both matches will take place at Jadwin.

“This is the weekend we’ve been looking forward to all year,” Letourneau said. “These are the last matches at home for our seniors, and potentially a chance to break [Trinity’s 12-year winning] streak.”

While the men’s team will wait until next weekend to face the nation’s best, the women’s squash team took on reigning national champion and No. 1 Harvard (8-0, 5-0) on Sunday. Though the No. 5 Tigers (8-3, 4-3) received many encouraging individual performances, the team fell to the Crimson 7-2.

“We were disappointed with the final score on Sunday, but we’re still feeling confident that we have what it takes to beat Harvard next time,” senior No. 6 and co-captain Nikki Sequeira said. “Despite the score, I think that we went into the match as prepared as we could have been, and there were some really close matches.”

Senior No. 2 and co-captain Jackie Moss and freshman No. 3 Libby Eyre both defeated top-15 opponents to record Princeton’s two individual wins.

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“Jackie has been undefeated at the No. 2 position and she fought hard to maintain that record on Sunday,” Sequiera said. “She’s playing really consistent squash, and I’m looking forward to watching her peak in time for Howe Cup.”

In other competitions, the Tigers topped No. 6 Stanford (7-5) 8-1 on Friday and No. 8 Dartmouth (7-7, 0-5) 9-0 on Saturday.

With the year-end Howe Cup on the horizon, Princeton’s seniors expressed satisfaction with the young team’s improvement over the course of the season.

“As a team, we did everything we could have done to prepare for the match on Sunday, so next time it is just going to be a matter of putting everything on the line and being confident that we can win,” Moss said.