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Talented Women's Squash Expects Close Race, Opens Home Season Saturday
November 20, 2014 | Women's Squash
KEY LINKS: LIVE VIDEO l @PUTIGERS l @TigerSquash1
The fifth-ranked Princeton women's squash team opens its 2014-15 season with a pair of home matches this weekend, beginning Saturday afternoon against No. 17 Franklin & Marshall following the men's match.
The match will be played over three shifts, and all matches will be streamed live through the Ivy League Digital Network. Sunday's 1 pm match against Wesleyan, which will also be on the Ivy Digital Network, will be played over two shifts.
Please note that if you are attending Saturday's match, there will also be a men's basketball and a football game going on, and there will be a $10 fee to park.
The 2014-15 women's squash season preview can be found below.
The Princeton women's squash team is well aware of what every ounce of effort is worth. It can be a point here, a point there. And that can be a game here, a match there. A championship, currently there, that the Tigers want here.
How close has it been recently? Two years ago, Rachel Leizman faced a match ball against Harvard. She fought it off, rallied back for the victory and helped Princeton to a 5-4 home win over the Crimson. That was the crucial win en route to an outright Ivy League championship.
Last season, the Tigers dealt with both injuries and close losses during the regular season, but they knew they would be in the mix during Howe Cup weekend. In a quarterfinal showdown with Yale, Princeton saw a pair of 2-0 leads evaporate in an eventual 5-4 loss to the Bulldogs.
There is no reason to think the Ivy League field — especially Harvard, Penn, Yale and Princeton — won't be in the mix once again. Then Trinity joins the party for the Howe Cup, and it should be another wild weekend, where teams have little more than a razor-thin margin for error.
Head coach Gail Ramsay feels optimistic about her roster, which blends both experience from the 2013 championship season and highly touted youth, including the 2014 Ivy League Rookie of the Year and a strong contender to challenge for that honor in 2015.
The top of the ladder figures to be led by a pair of underclassmen. Sophomore Maria Elena Ubina is the reigning Rookie of the Year after going 12-6 last season and reaching the CSA individual quarterfinals, where she fell in five games to the fourth seed. Ramsay has been pleased with Ubina's improved movement around the court, which will allow her to utilize her superior shotmaking ability. She can hit a winner from almost any spot on the court, and with a year of collegiate experience under her belt, she should be hitting plenty of them this season.
Ubina will be joined by freshman Olivia Fiechter, the nation's top-ranked recruit. Fiechter has been the No. 1 player at the U-13, U-15 and U-17 level, and she brings top-notch experience at both the domestic and international levels. She has a sophistication to her game that goes well beyond what you would expect from a freshman, and an attacking style off both the ground and the volley that puts opponents on the defensive. Ramsay isn't about to put a ceiling on Fiechter's potential at Princeton over the next four years.
Two seniors likely to fortify the positions right below that pair is Nicole Bunyan and Alex Lunt.
Bunyan is a two-time All-America who has played around the No. 3 position throughout much of her career. She went 13-5 last season, had an important win over Yale at the Howe Cup and picked up her first win in the CSA individual championship draw. She has dealt with as much big-match pressure as anybody on the roster, and she proved last season that she could handle it.
Lunt, the senior captain of the 2014-15 Tigers, is a physically imposing presence on the court who proved she could handle the middle of the lineup. She played most of the season at No. 5 and managed 13 victories, including three during a perfect Howe Cup weekend. Lunt can drive opponents crazy with her physical style, but her improved shotmaking makes her legitimately dangerous in the middle of the lineup.
Freshman Lindsey Scott is likely to compete with Bunyan and Lunt for a spot between 3-5 in the lineup. Ramsay knew Scott, another former No. 1 player at the U-17 level, had the ability to compete immediately at this level. She has been very impressed with Scott's tenacious work ethic and her strong court coverage; she is also a tough competitor, which will force opponents to play long, consistent matches to stay with her.
When Ramsay's Princeton teams won three straight national championships between 2007-2009, they did so with a dominant bottom of the lineup. If that group can reach that level, it has a chance to carry the Tigers to a truly special season, especially with the talent in the top five positions.
One player Ramsay trusts fully is senior Hallie Dewey, who led the Tigers with 15 victories last season. Ivy League matches? 7-0. Howe Cup matches? 3-0. Dewey is tireless on the court, and she handles the big moments like a champion; she proved that two seasons ago, rallying from 2-0 down in that 5-4 victory over Harvard. She has the added experience and confidence from last season that should carry her even further.
Leizman, who rallied from the match ball down against Harvard in 2013, has played in the top half of the Princeton lineup throughout her career. Two seasons ago, she was undefeated in the regular season and ended the year ranked in the Top 25. Last year, she battled illness and injury during the season; though she ended with 11 wins, she didn't quite gain the rhythm she had the previous one. Now healthy and experienced, Leizman could be a nightmare to deal with lower in the lineup.
Junior Tara Harrington joined Leizman as the lone freshman starters on Princeton's Ivy championship team, and she will begin her third season in the lineup. She has won 28 matches in her career; she nearly turned a good 2013-14 season into a great one, but she fell in a trio of tough five-game matches. Harrington made a strong run in the Holleran Cup, and she is looking to carry that level of play into this season.
Sophomore Alex Toth may not have had the same impact as Ubina, but she was another newcomer in the starting lineup last year. She was second to Dewey with 14 wins last season while playing mostly at No. 8. Freshman Kira Keating is hoping for that kind of impact this year. She has been a hard worker who clearly loves the sport, and she has already pulled off some impressive wins in challenge matches. Ramsay is excited to see how her game improves as she adds more variety to it.
Sophomore Gabriella Garr saw limited time last season, but she put in the work to challenge for more consistent time in the varsity ladder this season. Several other Tigers, including Isabella Bersani, are also vying for spots around the bottom of the varsity ladder.
The schedule is a fascinating one for Princeton, which opens the season with seven straight home matches over the span of more than two months. It begins Saturday with Franklin & Marshall, and continues through the exam break and into the Jan. 28 home showdown with Penn; those two teams reached the final of the Ivy Scrimmages earlier this month, where Penn earned a tightly contested 5-4 win.
Princeton will also host Harvard (Jan. 10) and its top-ranked senior Amanda Sobhy. Fans can likely expect to see her back at Jadwin when it hosts the CSA Individual Championships (Feb. 27-March 1); Sobhy is trying to become only the second player in women's collegiate squash history to win four individual championships.
The first player just happens to be Ramsay, who would love to see one of her young standouts block that path.
The Howe Cup team championships will be held Feb. 13-15 at Harvard.