Raghavan Claims Second Career All-America Honor; Ruggiero Reaches Holleran Final

Friday, March 1

Providence, R.I.

All Day

Princeton University

CSA Individual Championships

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

Raghavan Claims Second Career All-America Honor; Ruggiero Reaches Holleran Final

March 01, 2019 | Men's Squash, Women's Squash

CSA INDIVIDUAL BRACKETS

Junior Adhitya Raghavan earned second-team All-America honors for the second time in his career Sunday, as he rallied from a first-game loss to defeat Yale's David Yacobucci 3-1 to conclude the CSA individual championships. Princeton nearly picked up a second All-America honor, but freshman Elle Ruggiero dropped a heartbreaking 3-2 final in the Holleran Cup.

Raghavan fell 13-11 in his first game, but he came back to win the next three and claim All-America honors for the first time since 2017. The critical game was the third one, when Raghavan grinded out a 12-10 victory to grab a 2-1 lead.

Ruggiero tried to take down top-seeded Eleonore Evans of Harvard in a showdown of players who hadn't lost an individual game prior to the final. Evans grabbed control with a pair of tight wins (11-9 and 12-10), but Ruggiero showed the fight that she had demonstrated throughout an impressive debut season. She won 11-7 in game three and then won a 14-12 thriller to force a fifth, but Evans won the finale 11-9 to assure All-America status.

See below for a daily recap of the weekend.

SATURDAY
Junior Adhitya Raghavan and freshman Elle Ruggiero will both compete for Second-Team All-America honors Sunday during the final day of the CSA Individual Championships in Providence.

Raghavan, the top seed in the Molloy North, was pushed to the distance by Sanjay Jeeva of Franklin & Marshall in a five-game thriller. Jeeva won a 13-11 third game to grab a 2-1 lead, but Raghavan took control from there with wins of 11-6 and 11-4 to advance to Sunday's 12:15 final against Yale's David Yacobucci.

Ruggiero had little issue with the second seed of the Holleran East draw, Drexel's Anna Hughes. Ruggiero dropped only 13 points in a 3-0 win, and she closed it with an 11-2 victory in the third game. She will now face the top seed in the field, Eleonore Evans of the national champion Harvard Crimson.

Emme Leonard was also in the semifinals, but she fell 3-1 to top-seeded Emma Jinks of Virginia.

FRIDAY
Day 1 of the 2019 CSA individual championships has completed, and several Princeton squash players remain in the hunt for All-America honors this season. All Tigers alive in either the Molloy (men) or Holleran (women) draw will be scheduled to play one match Saturday, and then could potentially play for Second-Team All-America recognition Sunday.

WOMEN
Freshman Elle Ruggiero went 2-for-2 and didn't drop an individual game to reach the semifinal round in the Holleran East draw. She'll face Drexel's Anna Hughes Saturday at 3 pm; Hughes survived a five-game marathon in the quarterfinal against Princeton junior Morgan Steelman. After Steelman pushed the match to five games with an 11-7 win in the fourth, Hughes advanced 11-8 in the fifth.

Sophomore Emme Leonard had a bit more work to do in the South draw, but she will face top-seeded Emma Jinks of Virginia Saturday at 4 pm. Leonard won her opener 3-0, and then pushed past Drexel's Brooke Herring 3-1 Friday night.

Senior Isabel Hirshberg won her opener over Brown's Isabel Young, but she fell 3-0 to the second seed of the Holleran North draw, Trinity's Akanksha Salunkhe. Freshman Andrea Toth also won her opener in the West draw, but she fell 3-1 to Trinity's Jennifer Haley in the second round.

Freshman Bubble Lui was the only Tiger to earn a spot in the Ramsay Cup draw, named after Princeton head coach Gail Ramsay, the only woman to ever win all four collegiate individual titles. Lui entered as the 12th seed and is assured of Second-Team All-America honors, but her hope for a championship run ended in a 3-0 loss to Cornell's Sivasangari Subramaniam.

MEN
Junior Adhitya Raghavan just missed the A flight, but his push for a second All-America honor will continue after a pair of wins in the Molloy North draw. The top seed dropped only six points in his opening-round win over Michael Rodriguez, and then he posted a hard-fought 3-1 wiin over Inaki DeLarrauri of George Washington to advance to the semifinal, where he wiill face Sanjay Jeeva of Franklin & Marshall.