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Princeton University Athletics
Squash Teams Travel To Dartmouth, Harvard To Open 2016 Ivy League Season
January 08, 2016 | Men's Squash, Women's Squash
The Princeton men's and women's squash teams will make the trip north to both Dartmouth and Harvard this weekend to open their 2016 Ivy League seasons.
Both teams will take on Dartmouth Saturday at noon; the men will open play Sunday against Harvard at noon, while the women will follow at approximately 2:30. There is no live video coverage Saturday, but all courts for both matches will be streamed live Sunday.
WOMEN
The third-ranked Princeton women are 4-0 on the season and have yet to lose an individual match, but the Tigers will clearly face their biggest tests this weekend.
The Dartmouth women are ranked ninth nationally, though they are 0-1 in Ivy play following a 9-0 loss to the reigning Howe Cup champion Crimson in the season opener. Princeton topped Dartmouth 9-0 last season, though the Tigers graduated three of their top six players from last season.
Princeton does have two of the nation's top-ranked players in sophomore Olivia Fiechter and junior Maria Elena Ubina, both of whom have been both First-Team All-Americans and Ivy League Rookies of the Year. They will need to be at their best when Princeton takes its shot Sunday at the top-ranked Crimson, who have gone 29-2 since the start of the 2013-14 season.
Fiechter recently joined GoPrincetonTigers.TV to discuss the early part of the season and look ahead to the Ivy schedule.
MEN
The 11th-ranked Tigers hoped to make an earlier move up the national rankings, but a pair of 5-4 losses have left Princeton just outside the Top 10 as they try to make a move back into the A flight of the CSA Team Championships.
Getting there would mean moving into the national Top 8. Guess who plays the seventh- and eighth-ranked teams this weekend?
The Tigers open with the seventh-ranked Big Green, who made major headlines in the sport when they defeated Harvard Dec. 1 for their first win over the Crimson since the 1945-46 season. That victory moved Dartmouth to seventh in the rankings and gave it an early edge in Ivy play.
Princeton went 2-0 against Dartmouth last season, including one win during the CSA postseason, though both matches were very close.
The Tigers will follow that with a noon showdown on Sunday at Harvard. The Crimson have won three straight in the series.
For more thoughts on the men's squash team, you can listen to head coach Sean Wilkinson, a guest on this week's edition of TigerCast.