Princeton University Athletics
Howe Sweet It Is
February 10, 2000 | Women's Squash
While Julia Beaver is the Princeton women's squash cover girl-a Squash Magazine cover with the headline "Imposing Presence," to be exact-it was actually Meghan Murphy at No. 9 who gave Princeton the deciding point in its 5-4 win over Harvard in the 1999 national championship match at the Howe Cup.
The moral of the story?
It takes more than the best player in the country to win at squash.
The Princeton women's squash team made it two straight national titles in 1999. Unlike 1998, however, this one didn't come without some anxious moments.
Princeton won its first 10 regular-season matches this past winter. In many ways the season didn't start until the 11th match.
To say that Princeton and Harvard are archrivals is an understatement. Either Princeton or Harvard has been the national champion every year but three since 1975. Harvard had a streak of five straight national titles ended in 1998 by Princeton, the teams were unbeaten and ranked 1-2 when Harvard dealt the Tigers a 5-4 setback at Jadwin in the regular season. Down but not out, the Tigers headed the following week to the brand-new Murr Center in Cambridge, temporary home of the Howe Cup national championships while Yale's facility was undergoing a face-lift. Harvard, now top-ranked, was the No. 1 seed, Princeton was seeded second.
Princeton opened with a 9-0 win over Brown and then knocked off Penn 7-2 to advance again to the championship match against the waiting Crimson. In the first round of matches, Harvard won in three games at No. 2 and No. 6, while Meredith Quick won in three games at No. 4 to make it 2-1 Harvard. Princeton's Avery Coleman and Harvard's Blair Endresen played a marathon match at No. 8 that carried over into the second group of matches, and Coleman scored a huge win for the Tigers. Beaver won easily at No. 1, as did Blair Irwin at No. 3. Lindsay Wilber of Harvard, however, defeated Liz Kelly in three games, and it was 4-3 with two matches still in play.
Harvard appeared to have the edge at the No. 7 match, where Leah Ramella would defeat Bebeth Schenk in four games. That left it all up to the No. 9 match, where Princeton senior Meghan Murphy-who had played in the exhibition No. 10 match when the teams had met seven days earlier-was taking on Harvard sophomore Virginia Brown.
After dropping the first game 9-4, Murphy came back to take the next two 10-8 and 9-3. Brown evened it with a 9-4 win in the fourth game, and, though Ramella and Schenk were still on the court, it looked like it was to be one game for the national championship.
Murphy then showed that a win at No. 9 sometimes counts more than a match at No. 1, as she took the deciding point with a 9-6 win in Game 5.
by Jerry Price