The Harvard women’s squash team reclaimed the national title at Harvard Murr Center on February 15, beating Trinity in the 2015 Women’s National Team Championships. This was the third year in a row that Harvard and Trinity met in the finals. Harvard took the title in 2013, and Trinity won it last year. Despite a final score of 7-2, the outcome wasn’t clear until well into the match. The competition was tough this year, as any of four teams could have met in the finals. Harvard, Trinity, and Penn had all held the #1 ranking in the final three weeks of the season. Trinity won a thriller over Penn by a 5-4 score in the semifinals on Saturday, and Princeton gave Harvard a scare in the other semifinals, losing 5-4. A nice recap of the finals can be seen in this CSA article, and there are a number of other good write-ups on the CSA site.
Other local college teams fared well or as expected this weekend. Wellesley lost their matches in the C Division, but they were seeded last in that draw. The Tufts women beat the #1 seed William Smith to take the D Division championship. William Smith edged out Boston College along the way to the D finals, but Boston College later got a nice 5-4 win over Georgetown in the consolation round. The BU women won the F Division (Emerging Teams) round robin, and Northeastern came in second in that.
There were 44 teams participating in this year’s championships. Despite the blizzard and cold on Saturday night and Sunday morning, only a few consolation matches were canceled, and the Murr galleries were packed all weekend. If you haven’t attended the national college teams championships, do so sometime! The level of enthusiasm is fantastic with so many cheering teammates and fans.
A few photos from this weekend appear on the MA Squash photo gallery. We got a number of good professional shots over the weekend, so many more photos will be added to the gallery soon.
College squash’s attention will now move to the Men’s Team Championships being held at Trinity this coming weekend (Feb. 20-22) and then on to the Individual Championships being held at Princeton (Feb. 27-Mar. 1). But first, take a minute to savor the victory of our Harvard women national champions, and appreciate the good quality play of our local teams.