(updated 28-feb-09 22:10 )

The National Individual Squash Championships in Williamstown continued Saturday morning, with a number of consolation draws and the main event quarterfinals.

The women's quarterfinals produced some gripping action, but no upsets.

Princeton's Emery Maine started slowly against the supremely confident Nour Baghat of Trinity, but proved, as the match developed, to have just the hard-hitting game to give Nour fits. After some very concentrated action to chase down Nour's attacks and counterpunch with power, Maine found herself ahead in the second game and on the verge of an interesting contest. Unfortunately, Maine couldn't quite sustain the attack and let up just enough to give Baghat that change to get back her equilibrium and control of the match.

Baghat took the first semi final berth with a 3-0 win.

Next up were senior Lily Lorentzen and Yale's Logan Greer. Lorentzen's play was impressive just in the level of improvement in her sharpness and control that she was able to display between her first match Friday morning and the quarterfinals. She put Greer under considerable pressure ... but the tall and lanky Greer was able to put to work her slightly higher level of mobility and close-to-the-wall accuracy to blunt the effect of Lornetzen superior use of the court and attacking variety.

In a match somewhat closer than the final scoreline, Greer won in three.

Penn's two-time finalist Kristen Lange had absolutely no trouble with Harvard's Nirasha Guruge, giving up only three points overall.

The final women's quarters, produced the best match of the round. Princeton's talented Neha Kumar took on hometown star Toby Eyre in front of a large partisan crowd. Kumar and Eyre are a complete contrast in styles, with the long-reach Eyre using her height and leverage to produce power whenever possible, while Kumar prefers use of the width, length and height of the court. Kumar stuck with a consistent and effective strategy of lobbing Eyre, which enticed Eyre to attempt power from the volley, or alternatively hamstrung Eyre in the back court.

Unfortunately for Kumar, Eyre was complete "on" on her homecourt, retrieving many of Kumar's wonderful floating drops and boasts. Eyre had just enough of a counterattack to prevent Kumar from a great final comeback at the tail end of the fourth game, and Eyre advances to test her hometown edge against Penn's Lange.

In the men's quarterfinals, Colin West of Harvard, Baset Chaudhry of Trinity and Mauricio Sanchez of Princeton all advanced as expected. The surprise, again, was provided by the dark horse Vikram Malhotra, Trinity's #8 player who is playing far better than that position and advanced past a worn-down Kimlee Wong of Princeton.

Wong remarked, "The last two weekends were just too hard. After all the hard matches and energy of the past two weeks I didn't have enough left today."

The semifinals in both brackets take place tonight.

Men's "A" Potter	Women's "A" Ramsay
Men's "B" Malloy	Women's "B" Holleran
Men's A Potter Consolation	Women's A Ramsay Consolation
Men's A Potter 2nd Round Consolation	Women's A Ramsay 2nd Round Consolation
Men's B Malloy Consolation	Women's B Holleran Consolation
Men's B Malloy 2nd Round Consolation	Women's B Holleran 2nd Round Consolation
Men's B Malloy 3rd Round Consolation	Women's B Holleran 3rd Round Consolation

 

 

 

 

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