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By Michael Hidalgo and Drew Maliniak, Princetonian
The last team to defeat the Trinity men’s squash team was Princeton in a closely fought 5-4 match on the Tigers’ home turf. That was in 1998.
The top-ranked and nine-time defending Collegiate Squash Association (CSA) National Champion Banthams (10-0), who currently have the longest winning streak in any intercollegiate sport with 177 victories, took on the only team capable of disrupting their perfect record — the second ranked Tigers (5-0) — last Wednesday in Hartford, Conn.
Princeton freshman David Letourneau dropped the first game in his match against Manek Mathur but managed to rally back for a 7-9, 9-7, 9-1, 9-5 victory at the No. 3 spot.
Sophomore teammate David Canner also registered a win for Princeton with a tight five-game victory against Andres Vargas 9-4, 3-9, 0-9, 9-5, 9-1 at the No. 4 spot, while the Tiger’s No. 5 man, junior Hesham El Halaby took out opponent Parth Sharma 9-7, 9-4, 2-9, 10-8.
Junior No. 1 Mauricio Sanchez of Mexico City, the top-ranked individual player nationally, struggled with a hip injury in the weeks leading up to the match and was defeated by Trinity top dog Baset Chaudhry of Lahore, Pakistan, 9-2, 9-2, 9-0.
“The courts there used a crystal backing instead of the glass we were use to, so the ball took a bit of a different bounce,” Sanchez said. “He surprised me and played very well — I started out playing aggressively, and when that didn’t work I tried a more passive game, which also didn’t work.”
The last time the pair had met was in the CSA Team Finals last season, which Chaudhry also won.
Junior No. 2 Kimlee Wong also lost his match in straight games, as did freshman teammates Peter and Philip Sopher at the No. 8 and 9 spots. The Tigers’ No. 6 sopohmore Santiago Imberton failed to consolidate a two-game lead against his opponent and lost a close five-game match. No. 7 senior Tom McKay also lost in four games, which brought the final score to 6-3 in Trinity’s favor.
It wasn’t all bad news for the Tigers, however, who on Saturday took on fourth-ranked Yale at Jadwin Gymnasium.
The Bulldogs raced to early 1-0 leads in three of their matches but were unable to maintain their momentum and were handed a convincing 9-0 defeat by the Tigers.
Wong, Canner, Imberton and McKay all won their matches in straight games, while Letourneau, Hesham El Halaby, and the Sopher twins each needed 4 games to defeat their opponents.
Yale’s No. 1 Max Samuel threw in the towel after the third point of the opening game against Sanchez and retired, giving the Tigers a perfect match score.
The next opponents will be Penn in a road match Thursday, followed by two more matches this week before the CSA Team Finals at Harvard next week.
“Apart from being better prepared, every other team will be rooting for us because they want Trinity to lose,” Sanchez said. “So I think we’re going to surprise some people when we play them again next week.”
Source: Daily Princetonian
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