Trinity Men Too Strong for Harvard
Feb 3, 2004 By Rob Dinerman © 2004 SquashTalk

Assaiante Awarded USSRA Presidents Cup

In an intimidating display of the strength and depth that has now won them 98 consecutive dual meets, and inspired both by the quality of their elite opponents and the major award that was conferred on their head coach Paul Assaiante just prior to the start of play, the five-time defending Potter Trophy champion Trinity Bantams overwhelmed previously undefeated Harvard 7-2 before a packed audience in Hartford Saturday afternoon, January 31st 2004.

This result, coupled with their 6-3 victory over Yale 10 days ago, means that the only
credible remaining roadblock to yet another undefeated regular season for Trinity
will come when they battle Princeton two weeks from now. But the Tigers, who
won the Ivy League title in 2002 and 2003, have lost four of their top five
players from those teams to graduation, and are unlikely, especially in the wake
of the 6-3 home loss they suffered to Yale this weekend, to pose a major
threat this time around in what has become something of a rebuilding season.

Had the original schedule held up, today's match would have represented a 100th straight victory, but a snowstorm earlier this month wiped out two matches, so the next two anti-climactic matches instead will be against Brown and Colby. The unfortunate loss of this milestone moment notwithstanding, the clash between the Trinity juggernaut and a Harvard squad that is favored to win this year's Ivy League crown was highly anticipated, and for the most part it lived up to the hype. So did Trinity's mid-line-up power, with Reggie Schonborn, Yvan Badan, Nadeem Osman and Eduardo Pereira sweeping to victory in the Nos. 3-6 positions respectively without the loss of a single game.

In the cases of Schonborn (who dropped only three points in his whole match with Ilan Oren, none in the first two games) and Badan (who was pushed to tiebreakers in both his first two games with all-American James Bullock), this meant conquering opponents in what was regarded as the strongest portion of the Crimson line-up; in that of No. 5 Osman, who posted a 9-0, 2 and 6 score against Michael Blumberg, it meant rebounding from his sub-par and losing outing last week against Yale's Nick Chirls and coming up big against one of the most consistent performers in recent Harvard history; and in that of Pereira, it meant throttling the most prepossessing talents of Canadian-born freshman star Jason Delierre, which he did to the decisive tune of 9-1, 4 and 0.

Augmenting this quartet of straight-set victories (and a fifth at No. 8 by Shaun Johnstone over Harvard co-captain Ziggy Whitman) were a pair of clutch performances by No. 9 Jacques Swanipoel, who won 10-8 in the fourth over
Harvard freshman Mihir Sheth, and No. 2 Bernardo Samper, the 2002 Intercollegiate Individual champion, who after trailing Harvard freshman Siddharth Suchde two
games to one, managed to assert himself in the closing laps en route to a 9-3
in the fifth victory.

These results were more than enough to counter-balance Harvard's wins at
No. 1, where Will Broadbent earned a convincing four-game victory over
Michael Ferreira, who may have been still reeling from his one-sided loss earlier in
the month to Yale star Julian Illingworth, and at No. 7, where Asher Hochberg
saved a match-ball against him in the fourth game, winning that game 10-9 and
then taking the fifth 9-6 from Pat Malloy. The latter has made a career out
of winning this type of tough match during his four years at Trinity, but he
was unable to do so on this occasion.

ASSAIANTE LAUDED IN SURPRISE AWARD CEREMONY
Assaiante, the outgoing coach for the past half-dozen years of the United
States national team, was awarded the Presidents Cup "for outstanding contributions to squash in the United States" in a surprise pre-match presentation by USSRA CEO Palmer Page and President Ken Stillman in recognition of both his service in this capacity, which has seen a major upsurge in the quality of the American team and the professionalism of the team selection process, and the record-shattering success his Trinity teams have enjoyed during their run of Potter Trophies.

He highly praised the Harvard team his troops had just vanquished, alluding to how differently the afternoon might have gone had Badan not come through in those tiebreakers with Bullock or had Swanipoel not closed out his fourth-set tiebreaker or had Samper not staged his late rally or Osman not been able to pull his game together so admirably after his ragged showing barely a week before. There is no doubt that

Assaiante's Trinity team currently sits atop the intercollegiate squash world and will continue to do so until someone finally knocks them off. But Harvard demonstrated its considerable strength as well today, as did Yale, which will meet Harvard for the Ivy League title a few weeks hence and which will host this year's Potter Trophy at the end of February. The battle for the summit is still by no means resolved as the top teams in men's intercollegiate squash prepare for the final hectic push that culminates the 2003-2004 CSA season.

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