Trinity Squash Star Earns Two Important Student/Athlete Awards

Trinity's Isa Restrepo becomes squash's first NCAA postgraduate scholarship award winner. (photo © 2006 Trinity College.)

Trinity College women’s squash senior Isa (Maria) Restrepo (Medellin, Colombia) has been selected as a 2005-06 NCAA Winter Postgraduate Scholarship winner and was recently named as Trinity’s Susan A. Martin Award co-winner as the College’s senior female athlete of the year.  Restrepo is the first squash player ever awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and the first Trinity female to earn the award.  She is also Trinity’s first NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship honoree since 1995.

Restrepo has been a constant presence on-court for the Trinity Bantam's for the past four years. Always an intense and formidable competitor and battler on courts, that was complemented by exemplary manners, demeanor and sportsmanship on court as well.

Now she becomes another kind of banner carrier for the Bantam squash program, which while recruiting an increasingly diverse and international troupe of top competitors, has equally distinguished itself through the academic, workplace and squash accomplishments of its many graduates post-college.

To qualify for an NCAA postgraduate scholarship, a student-athlete must have an overall grade-point average of 3.20 (on a 4.00 scale) or its equivalent, and must have performed with distinction as a member of the varsity team in the sport in which the student-athlete was nominated. The student-athlete must have behaved, both on and off the field, in a manner that has brought credit to the student-athlete, the institution and intercollegiate athletics. The student-athlete also must intend to continue academic work beyond the baccalaureate degree as a full-time or part-time graduate student.  The Susan E. Martin “Outstanding Student-Athlete” Award is presented annually to the College’s senior woman who has combined excellence on the fields of competition with excellence in the classroom. This prestigious award was established in 1978 and named in honor of Suzie Martin ’71, who was one of the first Trinity women to compete in intercollegiate athletics.

The Trinity women’s squash team, coached by Wendy Bartlett (22nd Season), posted a 13-2 overall record and reached the finals of the College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championships (Howe Cup) for the fourth time in the last six years.  The Bantams suffered both of its losses to National champion Yale University by 5-4 scores.

In 2005-06, Restrepo posted an 11-7 record at the No. 5 spot and finished as the nation’s No. 20-ranked squash player.  A three-time All-American, Restrepo was 51-17 (T5th most wins all-time at Trinity) in her outstanding intercollegiate career and helped guide Trinity to a CSA National title in 2002-03 and CSA Finals appearances in 2003-04 and 2005-06.  

She is a graduate of La Ensenanza School and maintains a 3.86 g.p.a. as an engineering major at Trinity.  A member of the College’s Phi Beta Kappa Society, Restrepo is a three-time, New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) All-Academic honoree, a President’s Fellow in Engineering at the College, and a Phi Gamma Delta prize winner in mathematics and physics.  She is the daughter of Maria Tamayo.