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Eric Pearson Breaks Deadlock with Yale
by Princeton Sports Information
Feb 3,
2002 ©
2002 Princeton University,
may not be reproduced without express permission.
Saturday, February 2, 2002
BECK FALLS JUST SHORT IN COMEBACK BUT PEARSON CLOSES YALE DOWN
Eric Pearson had it all going against him in the fifth game.
Less than a month after returning from a serious knee injury, Pearson, Princeton's No. 5 men's squash player, was not in top shape. In addition, he had already dropped a match ball in the fourth game. "I just told myself I didn't want to lose the fifth game," Pearson said. He didn't. Pearson regrouped to defeat Yale's Christopher Olsen 9-2 in the fifth game and clinch Princeton's 5-4 win over the Bulldogs.
The victory kept Princeton unbeaten and sets up a likely battle against Harvard next Sunday (Feb. 10) for the Ivy League title. Yale slipped to 3-1 in the league and still has a shot at a three-way championship with a Harvard win over Princeton and a Yale win over Harvard the following week.
"I thought we had to win the top five," said Pearson, who suffered a strained MCL in his knee shortly after Thanksgiving and didn't return to the court until after New Year's. "I thought there was a chance it would come down to this." Princeton won easily at 1-4 behind Will Evans, David Yik, Dan Rutherford and Peter Kelly, who lost one game between them. Yale, though, had wins at No. 6 and No. 8, leaving three matches on the court with Princeton in need of one.
Nathan Beck, who rallied from down two games and 8-0 in the third game to save eight straight match balls, finally lost 10-9 in the fifth game at No. 9, around the time Olsen rallied to win the fourth game. The other match was even in the fifth game as Pearson closed out Olsen.
"I was worried that he would have trouble due to conditioning if it got to the fifth game," said Princeton coach Bob Callahan. "He'd been away for awhile. We originally thought he had torn the ligament, which would have ended his season. Instead, he came back, and he did a great job for us."
Princeton (6-0, 4-0) 5, Yale (5-2, 3-1) 4
No. 1 Will Evans (P) d. Anshul Manchanda
3-0
No. 2 David Yik (P) d. Joshua Schwartz 3-0
No. 3 Danny Rutherford (P) d. Peter Grote 3-1
No. 4 Peter Kelly (P) d. Ryan Byrnes 3-0
No. 5 Eric Pearson (P) d. Christopher Olsen 3-2
No. 6 Aftab Mathur (Y) d. Dent Wilkens 3-1
No. 7 Gavin Cumberbatch (Y) d. Aaron Zimmerman 3-2
No. 8 Albert McCrery (Y) d. Rob Siverd 3-0
No. 9 Christopher Wyant (Y) d. Nathan Beck 3-2
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