January 30th,
Philadelphia, PA -
It's the biggest match of the
year. It's your team versus the national champs. The
best versus the second best. Your
courts this time. A growing crowd behind you, and now all
of your teammates are there too. Because now it's just you.
Your team battled back from four down to even the score and
now you're down 6-2 in the fourth and it is up to you to
capture the elusive win. So what do you do?
"She had incredible streaks of shots. Off balance, an incredible
show of racquet skills." That's what the opposing coach said.
"She relaxed when most people would tense up. And then something
magical happened." Your coach said that.
"She slowed it down to like two miles an hour, and then
she was hitting from the deep backhand front crosscourt drops.
She was hitting shots that we all thought would end up in
the tin but they'd end up a centimeter above it." That came
from one of your captains, Elizabeth Kern.
Nice job Tara Chawla.
Hopefully you went out and celebrated. After all, it was
your 21st birthday.
 |
| Penn
Women take over #1 : ©2008
Penn Squash |
For the first time since last year's dual
match, the ladies of Penn and Princeton met. Two teams with
so much expected out of them. Both with strong sophomore
classes, deep rosters and experienced leadership. Both teams
were looking forward to this match, and nobody could predict
who would win.
When Princeton went out and won the first
rotation at positions 3, 6 and 9, it was a little shocking.
Then Carly
Grabowski defeated Emily Goodwin to put Princeton up 4-0
"Obviously that was discouraging because there were a couple
matches, Lauralynn's in particular, that I thought we had
a real shot at, but you never know how these things are going
to play out," said Penn women's head coach Jack Wyant. "Looking
at the next few matches though, I thought we might be favored
in a few."
Sophomore Britt Hebden captured Penn's first
win, beating fellow sophomore Kaitlin Sennatt 3-0.
Up next
were Princeton's Neha Kumar and Penn's Alisha Turner, who
recently moved back up Penn's roster to No. 2. Earlier in
the week Turner defeated fellow Canadian Ashley Clackson
of Trinity. This time she was again on court with an opponent
she has had a lot of experience with.
"Ashley and Neha are two girls Alisha came up through the
juniors with in Canada," Wyant said. "She had always been
beaten by both of them before this week. So on paper, that
match was one that favored Princeton."
Kumar injured her ankle
last week, playing in a WISPA event in Philadelphia and is
still recovering, and Princeton women's head coach Gail Ramsay
said that she was not at her best, but gave credit to how
well Alisha played.
Penn freshman Annie Madeira and Princeton's
Maggie O'Toole took the court next, with the No. 1's on the
team, Penn's Kristen Lange and fellow sophomore star Amanda
Siebert, preparing for their match
"Maggie and Annie have similar styles," said Ramsay. "Maggie
hits hard and runs well. Annie hits hard and has a nice boast.
I felt that match could have gone either way, but it wasn't
our match and that's unfortunate."
With Madeira's win, the
score was suddenly 3-1. So two former US National Junior
Women's team members now had an opportunity to save the match
or put it away.
"Amanda played great. She had two game balls in the second
and lost 10-9, before winning the third 9-4," Ramsay said. "Kristen
came out firing in the fourth. She was really attacking quite
well the whole time and Amanda was defending quite well.
When Kristen gets on a role, she is hard to stop. It's not
easy to take her off her game."
And the save goes to Lange.
"Kristen leveled it," Wyant said. "At
that point it was a flip of the coin."
Chawla was not going
to let that coin land any way but her's.
"Emery played positive, forward squash." Wyant said. "And
then somehow, when Tara was down 6-2 in the fourth, she came
back."
Maine, who played lacrosse last year instead
of squash, did not go down easy.
"I thought Emery displayed some of her strengths in the
match," Ramsay said. "She had good placement, good court
coverage, and was a good fighter."
With it's amazing conclusion,
it is likely the Penn women and their coach, will remember
this night forever.
"We stormed the court for Tara," Kern said. "We
were screaming and yelling. We went back to our team room
and everyone just smiled ear to ear. Jack was speechless.
Everyone was so excited."
Howe Cup is a few weeks away, and
it is at Princeton. So while Penn got a huge leg up in dual
match competition last night, if the two face each other
at Howe Cup, Princeton has the home court advantage.
"All the matches we lost we could have probably won, and
all the matches we won we could have lost; with the exception
of a couple matches that were pretty decisive," Ramsay said. "I
think we are as close as two teams can be."
RESULTS:
1. Kristen
Lange (UPENN) def. Amanda Siebert, 3-1. 9-5, 10-9, 4-9, 9-1
2. Alisha
Turner (UPENN) def. Neha Kumar, 3-0. 9-4, 9-6, 9-2
3. Jackie
Moss (P'TON) def. Sydney
Scott, 3-1. 9-2, 4-9, 9-6, 9-2
4. Tara
Chawla (UPENN) def. Emery Maine, 3-2. 9-4, 2-9, 2-9, 9-6,
9-3
5. Britt
Hebden (UPENN) def. Kaitlin Sennatt, 3-0. 9-3, 10-8, 9-1
6.
Casey Riley (P'TON) def. Christina
Matthias, 3-0. 9-5, 9-6, 9-6
7. Annie
Madeira (UPENN) def. Maggie O'Toole, 3-1. 9-7, 5-9, 9-2,
9-6
8. Carly
Grabowski (P'TON) def. Emily
Goodwin, 3-0. 9-1, 9-1, 9-3
9. Margaret Kent (P'TON) def. Lauralynn
Drury, 3-2. 9-2, 10-8, 4-9, 4-9, 9-6
10. Aly Brady (P'TON) def Elizabeth Kern 3-0. 9-2 9-4 10-8/
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