Toth, squash team see success and intensity in individual championships

With Jadwin Gymnasium hosting the College Squash Association Individual Championships for the first time this weekend, the Tigers made sure to offer plenty of thrills. Sophomore Alexandra Toth capped the three days of excitement, grabbing the Women’s B Division title Sunday afternoon. She was the only Tiger to compete all three days. Freshman Kira Keating’s run in the Women’s B Division was cut short on Saturday, when she was knocked out in the round of 16. In the Women’s A Division, sophomore Maria Elena Ubina and freshman sensation Olivia Fiechter collided in the quarterfinals on Saturday, where Fiechter emerged victorious only to fall later that day in the semis. Fellow Tiger, senior Nicole Bunyan, faced a similar fate, losing in the semis on the opposite side of the bracket. In the Men’s A Division, tri-captain senior Samuel Kang bowed out in the quarters.

Ubina came into the tournament as the fifth seed, just as she did last year, and sailed smoothly through the opening rounds, winning all six of her individual games. The only challenge came Friday night, when she had to close out Harvard’s Alyssa Mehta in a 14-12 win to emerge with a 3-0 victory and advance to the quarters, where she had been knocked out last year. Fiechter faced little resistance in her opening matchup dropping only four points against Sherilyn Yang of Franklin and Marshall, but her second round match against Anna Porras of George Washington proved more difficult. She dropped the third game but secured the victory with an 11-8 fourth game win, setting up the clash with Ubina. The Tiger-on-Tiger showdown was an instant classic, with Fiechter dropping the first two games in 11-8 and 12-10 losses before battling back to win the final three 11-6, 11-8, 11-8.

The 11th-seeded Bunyan played beautiful squash on Friday, and took down two Penn Quakers in the process. She defeated Michelle Wong in the first round and Penn No. 1 Yan Xin Tan in the second, both with quick three-game victories. On Saturday Bunyan pulled off a fantastic victory over the 3rd-seeded Danielle Letourneau of Cornell, younger sister of former Princeton All-American David Letourneau ’11, in a marathon of a match. Bunyan grabbed an early lead with an 11-8 win in the first game but dropped the second 12-10. She recaptured the lead with an 11-9 win in the third game but was pushed to five following a grueling 19-17 loss in the fourth. Bunyan finally closed out Letourneau with a 12-10 win to secure the victory.

The run ended for Bunyan and Fiechter in the semis where they were both bested in 3-0 losses to Harvard’s Amanda Sobhy and Trinity’s Kanzi El Defrawy, respectively, the top two players in women’s squash over the last three years. Sobhy and El Defrawy had met in the championship final the last three years and for the fourth straight year Sobhy emerged victorious, joining Princeton head coach Gail Ramsay as the only four-time college squash national champion.

Samuel Kang’s journey to the quarterfinals was bumpy. He battled injuries throughout his senior season, but his four years at Princeton have been marked by perseverance and grit. Following a 3-0 victory in the first round, he was forced to come back from a 2-1 deficit against Rochester’s Tomotaka Endo in the second round. He won in five but was outmatched by his quarterfinal opponent, the second-seeded Osama Khalifa of Columbia, who went on to appear in the championship match.

The CSA Individual Championships marked the end of the season for the squash team.