Yale Women Look To Challenge at the Top

Michelle Quibell joins at the head of the Yale lineup (photo © 2002 D Tessier)

Still riding the momentum from a big turnaround 2001-2002 season that saw them rise from seventh to third in the Women's Intercollegiate Squash Association (WISA) rankings and elevated to a genuine power by arrival of what will be the second straight outstanding class of freshman recruits, the Yale women's squash team is expected to mount a strong challenge for the Ivy League and Howe Cup championships, which the Eli women last won a decade ago in 1991-92.

That team was led by captain Berkeley Belknap, the Yale's only four-time all-Ivy honoree in the women's program's 30-year history and a three-time Intercollegiate Individual finalist who in her junior year became the first and only Yale woman to win this championship. Belknap has therefore been regarded as the best Yale woman squash player ever, her hold on this distinction will likely be sorely tested by Michelle Quibell, the gifted Atlantan who won the British Open 17-and-under championship and reached the
semis of the British Open 19-and-under last year, and who begins her freshman year at Yale this September regarded as the best American-born squash player since Alicia McConnell and Demer Holleran entered Penn and Princeton
respectively in the autumns of 1981 and 1985.

QUIBELL'S NATIONALS

Freshman Amy Gross vs Harvard's Lindsey Wilkens (photo © 2002 D Tessier)

She then lost a long five-game feed-in match to Harvard's No. 1 Louisa Hall, whom she will likely play at the No. 1 position when Yale plays its arch-rival this February in a dual-meet that looks to decide the 2003 Ivy League championship. Both WISA and Howe Cup champion Trinity and Harvard defeated Yale handily last season, but Harvard has lost three core players---Colby Hall, Margaret Elias and Carla Wing---to graduation, and their incoming group of freshmen are not as imposing as the Yale contingent of Quibell and Amy Gross, the Nos. 1 and 2 ranked juniors nationally, and National Indian Junior Team player Rachita Vora of Bombay, who is expected to make the starting nine as well.

BIG '01 LANDMARK WINS OVER PRINCETON

Freshman Rachita Vora (front) vs Princeton's Tricia Gadsden (photo © 2002 D Tessier)

DEEP SQUAD

Sophomore Frances Ho (front) vs Princeton's Annie Rein Weston(photo © 2002 D Tessier)

YALE WOMEN AND MEN - FROM THE SAME MOLD
In fact, the degree to which the Yale men's and women's programs are
mirror images of each other is remarkable to the point of being almost eerie.
Both teams are coached by one of the famed Talbott brothers; Mark's older
sibling Dave is starting his 20th campaign at the helm of the men's squad.
Both have featured outstanding depth in recent years but have lacked a
superstar at the top ever since the colleges switched to softball nearly a
decade ago; in fact, last year's men's team swept the Nos. 6-9 positions in
both their dual-meet and Potter Trophy matches against Princeton, only to
lose 5-4 on each occasion when the powerful Tiger top five did not allow a
single breakthrough. Both are heavily underclassmen-oriented and will lose
only one senior (Sands and Peter Grote) from last year's teams; both had
strong freshman classes last season, with the six aforementioned women
complementing Chris Wyant, Gavin Cumberbatch and Joshua Schwartz, who played as high as No. 2 while still a freshman last year; both are getting two
freshmen who are expected to immediately play in the top three (Quibell and
Gross, Julian Illingworth and Avner Geva); and, expanding on the latter theme
one step further, both programs will be getting arguably the best
American-born softball men's and women's player to ever enter the college
ranks (not just the Yale ranks) when Illingworth and Quibell respectively
register this fall.

Neither program has ever won an Ivy League title during the softball era,
but both programs will clearly be strong contenders in 2002-2003. The
Talbotts HAVE pulled off a family "double" during their outstanding playing
careers, with Mark and Dave winning the Legends (35-and-over) and Open crowns
respectively of the '88 Canadian Open, the '89 WPSA Championship and the '91
Plainfield Invitational on the WPSA hardball circuit on which they competed
for so many years. Whether they can now do so as Yale coaches remains a
tantalizing question the resolution of which will be an intriguing story line
of the forthcoming intercollegiate season.

PREDICTED FINISH: HOWE CUP: Third IVY: Second

The Yale line-up (photo © 2002 D Tessier)