Women's Squash: Princeton falls to tourney champ but finishes 3rd

Playing on its home courts in Jadwin Gymnasium, the women’s squash team believed it could pull some upsets at the Howe Cup, the season-ending team tournament. Though the No. 5 Tigers fell to the eventual champion, top-ranked Yale, they upset a pair of higher-ranked foes, beating No. 4 Penn in the opener and No. 3 Trinity in the third-place match.

In Friday’s quarterfinal, Princeton (11-5) saw a familiar opponent in a familiar setting: It had faced the Quakers (9-5) at Jadwin less than one month ago. The Tigers, then ranked fourth in the nation, one spot ahead of Penn, took a 4-1 lead but watched the visitors sweep the final four matches and win. The two teams flipped in the national rankings and remained there entering the championship, making Princeton a slight underdog in its first match.

The Tigers again took a quick lead, sweeping the first round of matches despite a notable lack of experience. Freshman No. 6 Alex Sawin won a thriller with a fifth-game comeback, while a pair of classmates, No. 3 Libby Eyre and No. 9 Caroline Feeley, won by larger margins. Eyre earned revenge over Annie Madeira, winning 3-1 after losing their first meeting by the same score.

“I’ve been training harder with the top players, and I’ve also been getting a bit more confidence and being a bit more comfortable playing at the college level,” Eyre said. “It’s a stressful process and it’s hard being a freshman, but once I got comfortable, I definitely stepped up my game.”

Sophomore No. 8 Casey Cortes opened the second round with a four-game victory over Chloe Becker, leaving the Tigers only one win short of advancing. Junior No. 5 Katie Giovinazzo led 2-1 and was only two points from providing the clincher when Pia Trikha fought back in extra points to force a fifth game and eventually win the match.

Penn again posed the threat of coming back in the final shift, but just moments after Giovinazzo dropped her fourth set, senior No. 2 and co-captain Jackie Moss completed a 3-0 sweep of Rachael Goh on the main court, punching Princeton’s ticket to the semifinal.

“I didn’t know during the match [that it was a potential clincher],” Moss said. “But after I got off the court, [sophomore No. 1] Julie [Cerullo] came up to me and said, ‘That was the fifth match. We won.’ ”

Senior No. 7 Nikki Sequeira earned a 3-0 victory of her own shortly thereafter, while Cerullo notched the final Princeton win, 3-1.

The hosts started quickly again the next day against top-ranked Yale (18-0). Eyre opened the contest with a quick 3-0 victory, extending her win streak to seven consecutive matches, and Sawin soon completed a sweep of her own. Though Feeley lost in four games with the final match going to extra points, the Tigers held a 2-1 lead after the first set of matches.

Princeton, one of only five teams to take any games from the undefeated Bulldogs in the regular season, did not hold its lead for long. Moss fell in three games, evening the team competition well before the other two matches were completed. In a back-and-forth match featuring quite a few long rallies, Cortes won the fourth game, 11-9, evening her match against Gwendoline Tilghman at 2-2. On the neighboring court, Yale’s Rhetta Nadas overcame a 2-0 deficit against Giovinazzo, forcing a fifth game.

The two critical matches restarted at almost exactly the same time. Giovanizzo fought back from an early deficit to take a 7-3 advantage but lost the next four points. She fought off one match ball but could not regain the advantage, losing 12-10. But Cortes, playing aggressively and ending several points with tough shots, opened up a lead and hit a backhand drop to the opposite corner at 10-5 to win the match.

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“I was exhausted by the fifth set ... I was trying to play smart and move [Tilghman] around the court, but I was also trying to shoot and end points quickly,” Cortes said. “Three weeks ago, I lost to her in three games, but I thought we could win the match and wanted to make sure I did everything I could for the team. During the long points, that’s what was pushing me through.”

“I could hear the cheering from [Giovinazzo’s] court and I was kind of looking at the scoreboard, so knowing that she was also in a fifth game made me want to win even more,” she added.

By the time the second round was finished, Cerullo was already in deep trouble, down 2-0 on the main court. Logan Greer, the third-ranked player in the country, took the third game handily, leaving the Bulldogs one match shy of victory.

Freshman No. 4 Lexi Saunders lost the first game despite an early lead and never recovered. With Sequeira leading one court over, Yale freshman Kimberley Hay took the second game and jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the third, forcing a series of errors en route to an 11-4 victory that ended the Tigers’ title hopes. Sequeira eventually lost her fourth and fifth games, providing the final margin of victory.

The Tigers took on Trinity (14-4) in the third-place match Sunday afternoon. Princeton uncharacteristically fell behind in the first shift; Sawin came back from a 2-1 hole for her third victory of the weekend, but Eyre and Feeley were defeated. Cortes completed a perfect weekend with a four-game win and Giovinazzo took her match as well, again evening the competition at 3-3 heading into the final round.

Saunders was swept in the No. 4 match, but Cerullo earned a dramatic victory over Catalina Pelaez in four games, three of which went to extra points. Cerullo's win put the pressure on the No. 7 match, in which Sequeira took on Robyn Hodgson in the final team match of her career. Hodgson took a 2-1 lead, but, boosted by the home crowd, Sequeira handily won the fourth and fifth games, clinching the 5-4 Princeton victory.

Yale took home the championship trophy, defeating defending champion and second-ranked Harvard in the final match 5-4.