Intercollegiate Singles Champion Transfers to Stanford University.

Squashtalk has learned that Lily Lorentzen, who as a Harvard freshman this past winter became only the fourth collegian (preceded by Gail Ramsay of Penn State in '77, Demer Holleran of Princeton in '86 and Jessica Dimauro of Penn in '96) ever to win the women's Intercollegiate Individual championship as a freshman, is transferring to Stanford University this coming September.

Lily Lorentzen (in WISPA action in 2005) to bolster Stanford Program. (photo© Carlisle Stockton)

Lorentzen is an eight-time U. S. National Junior champ who has attained a WISPA ranking as high as No. 54 and reached the semifinals of the U. S. Nationals each of the past two years.

She will thus become the first truly prominent squash player to represent Stanford, where she and legendary player and coach Mark Talbott, the Hall of Fame inductee who guided Yale to the '04 Howe Cup national team championship before moving to Stanford two years ago, will be forming a compellingly formidable player/coach combination, one that promises to transform squash's heretofore low-key status at Stanford and have major ramifications on the entire intercollegiate competitive scenario for years to come.

Lorentzen's impending transfer caps off an amazing series of positive developments that have lifted the Stanford program in just the past 24 months, during which time frame the immensely popular and accomplished Talbott, as noted, agreed to head-coach the men's and women's team; the previously barely adequate Deguerre Gym (two softball courts and three beaten-up hardball courts) has been replaced by the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center, a gleaming 75,000-square-foot state of the art athletic facility which includes seven excellent ASB softball courts, one of which is a three-glass-wall structure; the women's team has risen from No. 30 to No. 19 in the College Squash Association (CSA) team rankings and has been elevated from a club sport to full varsity status; and now Lorentzen, the kind of high-profile superstar talent who is sure to attract other top-flight juniors in the near future (just as Michelle Quibell did when she chose Yale four years ago and proceeded to launch the Elis to three consecutive team Howe Cups along with the Individual titles she won in '04 and '05) is coming on board early in her intercollegiate career.

Lorentzen in a Harvard Uniform last season moves west. (photo© Vaughn Winchell)

Lorentzen's move west will also have a definite impact on a Harvard program that she led in '06 to its first Ivy League title in three years while personally losing only one dual-meet match all last season, which she culminated by defeating Quibell handily in the deciding match of Harvard's 5-4 win that determined the Ivy League winner and then overcoming a fifth-game final-round deficit against her Harvard teammate Kyla Griggs and rallying to take the Individual crown.

Lorentzen, along with Julian Illingworth, Gilly Lane, Julia Drury and Tucker George, will be representing the U. S. at the World University Games in Hungary late this summer before enrolling at Stanford, where she will be joining her two sisters (their mother is a Stanford alumna as well). She of course will move directly to the top of a Stanford line-up that last season was led by Brooksie Riley '08, a nationally-ranked junior player from the Philadelphia (which made her the only member of the Stanford men's or women's squads who had played squash extensively prior to college), and No. 2 player Ashleigh Pattee '06.

The latter is a converted tennis player, as are Esther Chang '08 and '06-07 co-captain (along with Riley) Karissa Hazy '07, all of whom have improved markedly as squash players along with the rest of the squad. These four returning letter-winners are expected to play behind both Lorentzen and incoming freshman Katy Brewster, a product of the famed Heights Casino program who has for the past several years earned a top-10 ranking in USSRA junior age-group standings.

Mark Talbott is catalyzing west coast squash. (photo© Stanford Athletics)

During a glorious 20-year pro playing career that spanned the 1980's and 1990's, Talbott won five North American Open and five WPSA titles as well as more than 100 WPSA ranking tournaments overall, while holding the No. 1 ranking for a full decade and also starring in doubles, a parlay that earned him a host of awards (for both on-court excellence and citizenship) and universal recognition as the greatest American player in history. His six-year coaching career at Yale from 1998-2004, as noted, culminated in the 2004 Howe Cup title and set the Elis up for the 2005 and 2006 Howe Cups that have followed.

Whether Talbott can elevate a west-coast college program to similar heights remains to be seen, but both Stanford's teams have risen in the rankings during his two years there (the men are currently at No. 23) and last year both teams made several trips east and hosted some round-robin team competitions as well. The program is clearly and significantly on the rise, and the addition of the reigning Intercollegiate Individual champion Lorentzen unquestionably will constitute an emphatic forward step in that noteworthy progression.

Lorentzen joins a spirited Stanford squad. (photo© Stanford Athletics)