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Princeton University Athletics
1998-99 Men's Squash Season Review
August 09, 1999 | Men's Squash
Aug. 9, 1999
If you're looking for the defining moment in the 1998-99 Princeton men's squash season, it came at the national five-man championships in early January. That's where Princeton won the title, knocking off Trinity in the championship match.
That was the same Trinity team that would go on to sweep to the national championship in February.
To say that the Tigers were top-heavy in 1998-99 would be fairly accurate. Princeton featured the national player of the year (junior Peter Yik), as well as another player (senior Amir Give'on) who almost bounced that national champ out of the No. 1 spot in the Tiger lineup. Behind them were two more players (senior Alan Cantlin and freshman Peter Kelly) who could play with anyone.
Unfortunately for Princeton coach Bob Callahan, he had graduated eight of his top 13 players from the previous year, so he had to ask the rest of his lineup to make some huge jumps.
How huge? Well, Princeton's 5-6-7-8-9 men last year were Marshall Sebring, Steve Lilley, Harrison Gabel, Randolph McEvoy and Chris LaPorte. The year before that, those five were 9-10-14-15-16 on the ladder. Added together, the result was an 11-5 season and a No. 4 national finish that saw all of the losses come to the three teams ranked ahead of the Tigers-two to Trinity, two to Yale and one to Harvard.
"This was the most enjoyable year I've had in coaching," says Callahan. "They were a great group of guys to be around, and they were the hardest working team I've ever had. They had a great attitude and a great work ethic, and the five guys from five to nine played great, especially considering their experience level."
Princeton had no trouble with teams ranked below, and the season began with a series of 9-0 wins over opponents such as Denison, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn and Navy.
In a precursor of things to come, Princeton then dropped a 5-4 decision to Yale in which the Tigers won the top four and dropped the bottom five. The Tigers also lost regular-season matches to Trinity 9-0 and Harvard 6-3 to earn the fourth seed at the national championships.
Princeton opened with a win over Western Ontario before falling 9-0 to Trinity in the semifinals. The Tigers then fell 5-4 to Yale again to finish fourth.
The season would end on a high note, however, as the Tigers put up a strong showing in the national individual championships.
Princeton's top four all competed at the event, held the first week of March at Penn. Kelly, the 18th seed, fell in the second round, while 13th seeded Cantlin went out one round later to Akhil Behl of Trinity. Behl, a thorn in Princeton's side, then knocked out Give'on one round later in the quarterfinals.
That left Yik, the third seed, as the lone Tiger in the semifinals. Yik swept past No. 2 seed Dave McNeeley 15-10, 15-9, 15-14 to advance to the championship match, where a familiar name awaited in No. 9 seed Tim Wyant, whose brother Jack and sister Missy had both played at Princeton. Yik knocked off Wyant 15-4, 15-12, 15-2 for the title.
Yik and Give'on were named first-team All-America, while Cantlin and Kelly were second-team (Cantlin for the fourth time). All four were first-team All-Ivy League. Yik was the league Player of the Year, while Kelly was the Rookie of the Year.