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[College Results]

Trinity Roars to 2nd Howe Cup Title
By Rob Dinerman staff © 2003 SquashTalk Feb 17, 2003 © 2003  
Howe Cup results/draws

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Michelle Quibell (red) couldn't hold onto to a two game lead over Trinity's Amina Helal (photo © 2003 Debra Tessier)

While their male counterparts were impressively defeating previously undefeated Princeton 8-1 and thereby clinching their fifth straight undefeated regular season and sixth consecutive CSA
championship, Trinity's women's varsity obliterated the field en route to their second Howe Cup title in a row. It was an unprecedented display of supremacy for the Lady Bantams, who had never won this event prior to doing so last season.

The 2002 win had been by a bare 5-4 margin over 2001 champion Harvard in the final round---by contrast, Coach Wendy Bartlett's 2002-2003 crew won all 27 of their weekend's matches, which in 30 previous years of Howe Cup competition had never been done.

The last nine of these came Sunday afternoon against a Yale team playing on its home Payne Whitney Gymnasium turf and before a packed gallery that was hoping to make a difference but never was given an opportunity to do so.

Five of Trinity's victories-at the Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 positions, hence evenly dispersed throughout the line-up---required only the three minimum games to complete, and in only three of those combined 15 games,none of which even went to a tiebreaker, did the vanquished Yale player garner more than five points. The only match to go to five games was the highlight meeting at No. 1 between 2002 Intercollegiate Individual champion Amina Helal and Yale freshman star Michelle Quibell. The latter was still pumped from her first-ever career victory the day before over career nemesis and Harvard No. 1 Louisa Hall, who had taken their opening game in a 10-8 tiebreaker but could not repulse a Quibell shooting streak that lasted all the way through the subsequent three games, which Quibell won 9-1, 4 and 2.

Helal on the other hand had been pressed all the way in her third and rubber match this season by Quaker star Runa Reta in the balancing semi-final between Trinity and Penn. The 10-9 8-10 9-3 10-8 graph of this clash between the top two players in the women's college game amply reflects the closeness of their competition and sets the stage for what should be an exciting Individuals tournament, which is scheduled at Trinity in two weeks.

No sooner had Helal breathed a sigh of relief at her narrow victory over Reta when
she found herself confronting a two-game deficit yesterday afternoon against
Quibell. By this time, the team outcome was already safely decided in Trinity's favor, but in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, a suddenly aroused Yale gallery clustered around and behind Yale's multi-glass-wall exhibition court was vociferously urging Quibell to complete what would have been a major upset win over the reigning college champion. Her best remaining chance came in the third game, which wound up in a tiebreaker, but when Helal won that game 10-8, she took command from there, winning the last two downhill games by scores of 9-6 and 9-2.

Thus quietly ended Yale's first appearance in a Howe Cup final since winning this event for the third time ('77, '86 and '92) 11 years ago. Harvard has won six Howe Cups since Yale's last win, and 11 overall, including as recently as 2001, when Hall was backed up in the top portion of the Crimson line-up by her older sister Colby, Margaret Elias and Carlin Wing. This trio of members of the class of 2002 was also therefore present last season, and Coach Satinder Bajwa has understandably found it
difficult this season to fill the void left by their graduation last May.

Even with that backdrop, no one expected Harvard to lose to Yale in Saturday's
semi-final by a margin as big as the 8-1 official tally, though Lindsey Wilkins's loss to Eli freshman Amy Gross at No. 2 was in a 10-8 fifth-set tiebreaker and Alison Fast loss to Yalie Devon Dalzell at No. 8 was in five games as well.

OTHER PLACEMENTS - DARTMOUTH TOPS P'TON
Though reeling from their first loss to Yale in more than a decade and chastened by the need to recoup in time for their rematch with the Elis in Cambridge this coming Wednesday for the 2003 Ivy League title, the Harvard women defeated Penn 7-2 in the third-place play-off, which was highlighted, as had happened all weekend, at the No. 1 match, this time between Hall and Reta, who trailed two games to one but rallied to win 9-7 in the fifth. In the back draw of the eight-team Howe Cup tourney, Dartmouth defeated Princeton 5-4 for fifth place overall and Williams edged Brown by the same score to finish seventh. Bowdoin topped Bates 5-4 in the final of the
Kurtz Cup for teams ranked Nos. 9-16, Mt. Holyoke beat Wellesley 6-3 in the
final of the Walker Cup for teams ranked Nos. 17-24 and Franklin & Marshall took the Epps Cup, which was held as a six-team round-robin to determine the Nos. 25-29 places

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