Kira Keating Caps Tiger Career With All-America Finish

Friday, March 2

Washington, D.C.

All Day

Princeton University

CSA Individual Championships

Photo by: David Keating

Kira Keating Caps Tiger Career With All-America Finish

March 04, 2018 | Women's Squash

Kira Keating came into the final day of her collegiate career with 48 victories for the Princeton women's squash team, a remarkable total for one of the Tigers' most consistent players.

Her 49th win, a marathon victory over one of the brightest members of the Princeton present and future, is one she won't soon forget. It was the one that punctuated her career with an All-America finish. Keating defeated freshman teammate and 2018 Ivy League Rookie of the Year Raneem El Torky 15-13, 7-11, 11-7, 1-11, 11-7 to clinch second-team All-America honors.

It was a fitting finish for Keating, who joins fellow senior co-captain Olivia Fiechter as an All-American during the memorable 2017-18 season. Fiechter clinched First-Team All-America honors Saturday with a win in the consolation semifinal, and Keating followed suit with a narrow victory Sunday morning at George Washington.

DAY 2 RECAP
Senior co-captains Olivia Fiechter and Kira Keating both had big days on their All-America pushes, while freshman Raneem El Torky also had an impressive showing during Day 2 of the CSA Individual Championships.

Fiechter clinched a Top-10 finish and likely First-Team All-America honors with a pair of 3-0 wins in the consolation round of the Ramsay Cup tournament. She opened Saturday with a 12-10, 12-10, 11-9 victory over Trinity's Salma Alam Eldin, and then clinched the Top-10 finish with an 11-9, 11-9, 11-6 win over another Trinity veteran, Julia LeCoq. Fiechter joins Penn's Marie Stephan as Top-10 finishers from the consolation side of the A flight.

One other Princeton player is assured of Second-Team All-America honors, as both El Torky and Keating won their semifinal matches in the Holleran West draw. El Torky was pushed hard by Nicole Friedman of Williams, who grabbed a 2-1 lead with an 11-2 win. The 2018 Ivy League Rookie of the Year battled back with a tough 11-9 win in the fourth, and she finished the match 11-4. That sets up a match with her senior co-captain Keating, who knocked out back-to-back Tiger teammates to reach the final. One day after a 3-1 win over freshman Grace Doyle, she defeated junior Kate Feeley 11-6, 11-8, 14-12 to reach the final.

DAY 1 RECAP
While it was a disappointing day for Princeton's top players, there are still a trio of Tigers competing for Second-Team All-America honors heading into the second day of the 2018 CSA individual championships.

Princeton's two 'A' draw players, senior Olivia Fiechter and freshman Youssef Ibrahim, both suffered first-day upsets Friday. Fiechter, a four-time All-America honoree, fell in a four-game match to Harvard's Amelia Henley. Fiechter drew even with an 11-8 win in the second game, but an 11-8 victory for Henley in the third gave her the momentum, and she was able to close the match in the fourth game.

Ibrahim, the 2018 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, opened his draw with a 3-1 win over Rochester's Tomotaka Endo, which sent him into a quarterfinal match against Harvard's Timmy Brownell. It was Brownell who got the quick jump with 11-7 and 11-6 wins, but Ibrahim pushed the third game to 10-10. Unfortunately, the strong close went to Harvard, as Brownell finished with a 12-10 win.

Three women's players remain alive in the hunt for All-America honors, and they all happen to fall in the same Holleran Cup draw. Five Princeton women were selected into the Holleran West draw, and three reached the semifinals. Top-seeded Raneem El-Torky took care of business on the top half of the draw, posting a pair of 3-0 wins in her CSA individual debut. She will take on Nicole Friedman of Williams, the lone outsider in an otherwise all-Princeton field. The bottom half of the draw was the unpredictable side, and it left Princeton senior co-captain Kira Keating taking on junior teammate Kate Feeley for a spot in the final.

Keating opened with a 3-1 win in the first round, and then she took on freshman teammate Grace Doyle in the quarterfinal. Following a 1-1 split in the first two games, Keating pulled out a 13-11 win in the third to grab momentum, and she finished it 11-7 in the fourth. Feeley may have been the surprise of the opening day; injuries kept her out of the starting lineup for the majority of the season, but she stunned Stanford #3 Tara Shannon 3-1 in the quarterfinal to get a shot at Keating in the semifinal, set for Saturday at 1 p.m.