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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Seven Tiger Men Earn All-America Honors
May 14, 2009 | Men's Squash
Princeton, the 2009 Ivy League champion and national team finalist, placed seven men's squash players on the All-America team. Four players -- Mauricio Sanchez, Kimlee Wong, David Letourneau and Chris Callis -- each earned first-team honors.
Based on the final national rankings (the top 20 players earn All-America), Princeton had four first-team selections and three second-team selections; each of the three second-teamers were ranked in the national top 15: 12th-ranked David Canner, 14th-ranked Hesham El Halaby and 15th-ranked Kelly Shannon.
Sanchez joined Harvard's Kenton Jernigan and Princeton's Yasser El
Halaby '06 as the only three-time Ivy League Players of the Year, an honor he earned after the season ended; 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 is a four-time first-team All-America selection.
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.
Wong, El Halaby, Callis, 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, another four-time first-team All-America selection, 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. Callis earned Ivy League 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.
Shannon was injured for most of the season, but he made the most of his return. He rallied from an 0-2 deficit to defeat Trinity No. 7 player Andres Vargas in the national team final, and he folled it up with a victory over Trinity No. 4 player Parth Sharma in the national individual tournament. Shannon reached the quarterfinals before falling to eventual champion Baset Chaudhry of Trinity.