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Trinity Takes National Championship at Princeton
Also read: Rob Dinerman's
in Depth Report
Feb 16,
2002 ©
2002 Robert Callahan. May not be reproduced online or in print without
permission.
TRINITY MEN TOO STRONG FOR VALIANT PRINCETON NINE
Princeton NJ.-
It was a very exciting afternoon of squash! The #1 and #2 ranked teams in the country battling it out for the National Championship. Seven of the top ten ranked players in the country playing on the same stage on the same day - great drama!
Trinity is an awesome nine, certainly the best collegiate team ever assembled, and for Princeton, this is probably our finest top five ever.
After two energizing wins over Yale and Harvard by 5-4 scores this year, Princeton was primed to take on heavily-favored Trinity. All the essentials were in place - a huge crowd, dozens of alumni from both schools, two nervous coaches, and 20 players anxious to get started. Trinity was expected to sweep Princeton as they had almost blanked Yale and Harvard, but we hoped to keep them out on court a long time.
As the first shift went on court, I knew the Princeton players were ready, focussed, and up for the challenge. Fifteen minutes later, improbably, Princeton was tied or ahead in every match! David Yik went up 1-0 on Michael Ferreira, Peter Kelly was up 1-0 on Nick Kyme, Dent Wilkens led 1-0 over Nadeem Osman, and Rob Siverd leveled his score at 1-1 with his opponent. Everyone in the gallery was stunned, including myself!
Within another fifteen minutes, Trinity proved why they are the best team in the country as they leveled the score and went ahead 2-1 in games in three of the four matches. David Yik worked hard but lost in four games. Peter Kelly played beautifully and beat Nick Kyme 3-0, closing out an undefeated regular season. Dent Wilkens lost a close 4 gamer, and Rob Siverd went down in four.
The second shift started with Princeton still alive as Dan Rutherford at #3 took on Lefike Ragontse, last year's Intercollegiate finalist, Will Evans played freshman sensation Bernardo Samper from Columbia at #1, Eric Pearson played John Smith, a former top junior in England at #5, Aaron Zimmerman took on Rohan Bhappu at #7, and Nathan Beck squared off with Reggie Shonborn at #9. Things were still looking competitive as Danny took his first game, Will Evans raced to an 8-4 lead in his second game, Aaron was struggling at #7, but Nathan Beck, the hero from a week ago, was hanging in there.
Danny after an hour long match lost a heart-breaker 10-8 in the fourth, Nate Beck worked his way to 9-8 game ball in the third only to see his lead and the match evaporate 10-9. Will Evans couldn't finish out the second game losing 10-8, and went down in the third 9-5.
The final score: Trinity 8, Princeton 1. Trinity retained their national title and deserved to be champions! Princeton played very well and today's result encouraged them to work hard this week in the hopes of doing well again next weekend at the Team Championships at Harvard's Barnaby Courts.
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