Trinity Reaches 100.
Princeton Women Upset Harvard
Feb 8, 2004 © 2004 by Rob Dinerman

Paul Assaiante's Bantam Extend their Victory Streak to 100

Trinity Gets Media Coverage at 100; Princeton Women Stun Favored Harvard

February 8 Hartford CT USA ---ESPN Network, Sports Illustrated and the Hartford Courant were all present yesterday afternoon for the 9-0 victories that Trinity's five-time defending Potter Trophy national team champion men's team recorded
over Brown and Colby for the 99th and 100th consecutive dual-meet wins of their historic run.

Next week Coach Paul Assaiante's troops take on Princeton, the cause of their last regular-season loss, a 5-4 setback six years ago, where they will close out the pre-Potter Trophy portion of their 2003-2004 schedule.

In addition to a major story from the hometown Courant, which frequently
sends one of their sports reporters to cover Trinity athletics, ESPN produced
a five-minute spot that was carried in this morning's hour-long Sportscenter
telecast. The production featured a number of junior Bernardo Samper's points
with his out-classed Colby opponent, a screen depicting the 100-match Bantam
skein atop a list of other memorable intercollegiate streaks, including the UCLA
Bruin basketball team (88), the North Carolina women's soccer team (92) and
the U Conn women's basketball team (70), and, memorably, the ice-water
post-match mid-interview dousing of Assaiante, which the latter subsequently
acknowledged caused him to momentarily wonder whether he was on the verge of becoming the first coach ever to suffer a heart attack during the course of this
particular form of victory celebration! Fortunately the recent President's Cup
honoree did not make history in this costly fashion and hence he will now prepare
his squad for the impending Princeton match and the challenges that the rest of
this season will pose.

Sports Illustrated reporter Mark Beech was on campus from Wednesday afternoon through yesterday observing practice, interviewing Trinity students, teachers and administrators about the squash team and researching his upcoming article, which is expected to appear in the February 15th or 22nd issue of this highly renowned sports publication.

Sports Illustrated HAS occasionally focused on squash in the past, most notably in a late 1950's issue that placed Diehl Mateer and Henri Salaun, the top two American amateurs during this period, on the cover, and a substantial article in June 1982 entitled "The Man With The Midas Touch" on Michael Desaulniers, who at the time was the reigning North American Open champion and a Wall Street trader on gold commodities. But never has a college squash program been featured in this fashion, not even during the dynastic Harvard run of legendary coach Jack Barnaby's tenure, and this burst of media coverage can only accrue to the long-term benefit of the entire sport.

PRINCETON LADY TIGERS SHOCK HARVARD
So can an exciting match with the men's and women's Ivy League titles both at stake, and it was thought entering today's action that such a culmination would occur next Saturday in New Haven, where Yale's squads, both undefeated in Ivy League play, will meet their arch-rival Harvard in the regulation-season finale for both schools. But to enter that meet with a correspondingly spotless slate in league competition, the Crimson units first had to repel visiting Princeton. The Harvard men were up to the occasion, as witness their 7-2 winning score, but the Crimson women, three-time defending Ivy League champions, were shocked on their home Murr Center building by a decidedly underdog Princeton contingent that won 5-4 despite the absence of their top player Ruchika Kumar, who is no longer in school.

Led by their four-year No. 1 and four-time first-team all-American Louisa Hall, the Pan American Games team gold-medalist who in the final home match of her remarkable career dropped only four total points against Claire Rein-Weston, and the almost-as-dominant performance they received at No. 2 by Lindsey Wilkins, Harvard captured the Nos. 1-4 spots, dropping only two total games in the process.

But Princeton swept all five matches down below, most notably the five-game victories provided at Nos. 5 and 9 by Marilla Hiltz (who trailed two games to love before coming back in three straight) and Frances Comey (who trailed two games to one before winning 9-1 in the fifth) respectively, to generate a remarkable upset and send Harvard into disarrayed retreat as they now confront the formidable challenge of spoiling host Yale's aspirations for the first undefeated women's squash season in the 21 years since the 1982-83 campaign.

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