Report courtesy of College Squash Association
The 2020 College Squash Association (CSA) National Collegiate Women’s Team Championships culminated on Saturday with five finals and additional matches deciding final team placements. Yale University played host to all five finals and plenty of exciting matches throughout the day on Sunday.
Harvard University won their sixth Howe Cup–the women’s team national championship trophy–in a row and 20th overall on Sunday afternoon. For the first time in championship history, the match was played to decision, with Harvard earning victories in the first five matches of the contest to clinch the championship.
Full results for the competition are available at the Tournament Club Locker page.
After Princeton almost upset Harvard during the regular season, there was great anticipation that the Howe Cup final would be an instant classic. Harvard had not lost in over 70 matches at the time, but there was a feeling that this Princeton team could be the one to take them down on the big stage.
Harvard’s opening players did their best to quell that heightened intensity with strong starts on all three courts. Each Crimson player – No. 3 Hana Moataz, No. 4 Amina Yousry, and No. 9 Charlotte Orcutt – jumped out to a 2-0 lead, setting the tone for the rest of the match. Their Princeton opponents tried to fight back into the match, with two of them winning their respective third games, but it was not meant to be in the first wave. Harvard took a commanding 3-0 lead.
With the match decision fast approaching, the second wave of players stepped on court. Harvard’s No. 1 Gina Kennedy – who had been honored as the Betty Richey Award winner prior to the match – promptly dispatched her opponent in three games to earn a 4-0 team score. The race to the fifth point was on, ultimately with junior Hannah Craig logging the winning point with a 3-0 win of her own. Harvard’s Amelia Henley and Princeton’s Grace Doyle earned the remaining two wins from the matches on court.
In results that closely mirrored the exciting regular season match-ups, all three remaining Howe Cup matches went to very tight 5-4 scorelines. For third place, Yale emerged victorious over Trinity. Columbia earned their highest finish in program history with a win over Stanford in the fifth-place match. And, Drexel outlasted Penn, also clinching their highest finish ever.
For more coverage visit csasquash.com.
