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Princeton University Athletics
Women's Squash Caps Dream Season With 6-3 Victory, National Championship
February 18, 2007 | Women's Squash
Senior Ali Pearson came to Princeton as a highly-touted recruit, and she came with a class rich in talent. Like her classmates, she fought through a tough four-year career, with good wins balanced out by frustrating injuries and disappointing losses. That senior class, bolstered by an impressive set of underclassmen and the experience gained through three years of battles, made sure its final match together ended the right way. The top-ranked Tigers defeated No. 3 Harvard 6-3 in New Haven, Conn., to win the 2007 Howe Cup national championship.
"Our class has stayed really close, and we knew how much this meant to us," Pearson said after the Tigers claimed their first national title since 1999. "We've always had the talent, but we've all had frustrations. I think this year we had more heart than anything. We had great camaraderie on this team."
They had great camaraderie, but they also had great talent. After all, camaraderie alone doesn't get you to 10-0 and into the national final. Top to bottom, Princeton had the best lineup in the nation all season, and it was on display Sunday as the Tigers knocked off the upstart Crimson, which had upset No. 2 Penn in one Saturday semifinal.
"On paper, I thought the first four matches could really go either way," Princeton head coach Gail Ramsay said. "Their No. 1 player, Kyla Grigg, is one of the best players in the country, and the No. 2 through 4 matches were going to be really close. Numbers five through nine have been people we've counted on all season, and they came through again today."
Playing a three-round format, Princeton built a 2-1 lead after the first stage of matches. No. 9 Kaitlin Sennatt, a freshman who went undefeated during her dual meet season, was dominant in a 9-4, 9-3, 9-2 victory. Casey Riley, who played No. 1 in the Howe Cup last year after Claire Rein-Weston was out with an illness, dropped only eight points in a 3-0 win at No. 6 to cap a dominant and undefeated dual meet season. Freshman Amanda Siebert fell to Supriya Balsekar on the main court, where the Harvard standout was able to take advantage of the four glass walls with perfect drop shots in a 3-0 win.
Princeton ended the drama in the second stage. No. 2 Neha Kumar played one of her best matches of the season, keeping Jen Blumberg off-balance the whole match and winning the key points in each game to take a 9-4, 9-7, 9-5 victory. Pearson split her first two games at No. 5, but the unbeaten senior would not suffer her first loss of the season in the national final. The younger sister of Eric Pearson '03, who also ended his career in a national team final, Ali used powerful strokes and perfect drops to defeat Lydia Williams 9-5 and 9-1 in the final two games. Her final point, played in front of her teary-eyed mother and several excited teammates, moved the Tigers to the brink of a national title.
Princeton native Carly Grabowski didn't waste any time pushing the Tigers over that brink. Up 2-0 and 8-2 on Christine Neo, the junior drilled a low cross-court shot that her Harvard opponent couldn't reach before the second bounce. Following a handshake and a championship smile for a mostly pro-Princeton audience, Grabowski joined her celebratory teammates in a joyous hug behind the third court.
"This was definitely one of our strongest teams ever here," Ramsay said. "The '98 team went unbeaten and won the Howe Cup, and that team was loaded, but this one is just so strong top to bottom. This is just the best way for this senior class to go out. There were a lot of individual struggles and injuries, but they stayed focused and together, and they leave as champions."
Princeton would pick up its sixth win of the day with a 3-2 victory by Marilla Hiltz, who knocked off Hanna Snyder 9-6 in the fifth game. Two of her classmates, No. 1 Claire Rein-Weston and No. 4 Gen Lessard, fell in four-game matches after the championship had been decided. The three of them, along with Pearson, had come up with critical wins throughout the season that helped this particular Princeton team win every time it took the court. They also kept a long-standing tradition at Princeton of national dominance - for the 21st straight year, either an individual or national champion has been clad in Orange and Black.
"I didn't get much sleep last night," Pearson said. "It's been a 15-year era for me, and this is the perfect way to end it. My brother Duncan (a former Trinity captain)called me last night and told me that we needed to get this done, so he and I could hold our rings up over Eric's head."
She didn't need to say anything else. The smile told the whole story, and you get the feeling the memories of Sunday afternoon will provide a lifetime of smiles for a team that combined youth and experience, talent and teamwork, desire and drive, and turned it into the perfect season.
