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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Sanchez, Callis Claim Major Squash Ivy Awards; Six Claim All-Ivy Honors
March 09, 2009 | Men's Squash
Princeton men's squash senior Mauricio Sanchez became the third person in Ivy League history to earn Ivy League Player of the Year honors three times, while freshman Chris Callis became the fourth Tiger player to win Rookie of the Year honors in the last five seasons; those honors were handed out by the Ivy League, which also named six Princeton players on its nine-man All-Ivy squad.
Sanchez and Callis joined seniors Kimlee Wong and Hesham El Halaby, junior David Canner and sophomore David Letourneau on the All-Ivy squad; there is not an All-Ivy second team. The other three members of the team are Harvard's Colin West, Cornell's Chris Sachvie and Yale's John Fulham, all of whom played No. 1 for their respective schools.
Sanchez joins Harvard's Kenton Jernigan and Princeton's Yasser El Halaby '06 as the only three-time Ivy League Players of the Year; he and El Halaby are the only two players in league history to win the honor three times and earn the Ivy League Rookie of the Year honor. Sanchez went undefeated in Ivy League play as a senior; in fact, his only loss in an Ivy League match came as a freshman, when he replaced an injured El Halaby at the No. 1 position and lost to Yale's Julian Illingworth, a former national finalist.
Sanchez will graduate as one of the most decorated players in the history of the Princeton squash program. He, along with Wong and Hesham El Halaby, was part of the only senior class to ever win Ivy League championships in all four years, and he also led Princeton to the national team title all four years. Sanchez reached the national individual semifinals all four years and the national championship match twice; this season, he dropped a five-game thriller to the defending champion, Baset Chaudhry of Trinity. Sanchez is one of only two collegiate players to earn a win over Chaudhry over the last three years; Sanchez topped him in five games in the 2009 regular-season finale.
Callis earned Rookie of the Year honors after completing a perfect Ivy League record. He didn't drop a single game throughout the league season and picked up one of Princeton's four wins over Trinity in the regular season finale. He was the only undergraduate to earn a seed in the national individual championship, and he joins Letourneau and Sanchez as current Princeton players to be named Rookie of the Year in their careers.
Wong, El Halaby, Canner and Letourneau were all unbeaten during the Ivy League season and were among the top-ranked Ivy players in the final national rankings. Wong and Letourneau both made the national individual quarterfinals, while El Halaby and Canner lost in the second round to ranked opponents. Canner nearly pulled off one of the upsets of the tournament when he rallied from a 2-0 hole against Rochester's Jim Bristow, the sixth seed, but Bristow won the fifth game 9-5 against a cramping Canner.