Men’s, women’s squash fall to Princeton in Ivy Openers

NEW YORK Columbia’s men’s and women’s squash teams each suffered 6-3 losses in their Ivy League openers to Princeton on Friday. The eighth-placed women’s team was defeated by the 4th Tigers, while the ninth-placed men’s team was defeated by the third-placed Princeton.

“I think the big positive is that we’ve gotten better every match,” Kenneth W. Torrey Director of Squash Chris Sachvie said afterwards. “Today was one of our best performances, even though it didn’t go our way. I think the message is we’ll get one if we continue to develop in this direction. There are no easy ones, but we’re a couple of bounces away on the women’s side and one or two more things go our way on the men’s side, and the result is different.”

Columbia heads to Penn for its second Ivy League game on Sunday. The men will battle the No. 2 Quakers, while the women will take on the ninth-ranked Quakers.

WOMEN’S SUMMARY:
No. 4 Princeton 6, No. 8 Columbia 3

The Columbia women (1-3, 0-1 Ivy) got off to a strong start, winning the No. 2 match. Simmi Chan. The sophomore from Hong Kong remained undefeated this season. He defeated Princeton’s Liyen Teohmi 11-1, 11-7, 12-10 to give the Lions their first point of the day.

Princeton (2-0, 1-0 Ivy) responded with wins in the 4th and 7th to take the lead, but the Lions came right back Nourin Khalifa. The first-year improved her record to 3-1 with a tight four-game win over India Stephenson 10-12, 11-9, 11-2, 11-7 to even the team score at 2-2.

Moments later, Princeton ended a five-game hitting streak that decided the final score. Andrea Toth came back from a losing game and came fourth Sarah Cao11-9, in the fifth. Izhar’s Charity also surrendered a 2-1 lead in the game, dropping the fourth and fifth to Abigail Schuster 12-10 in the fifth.

The Tigers grabbed the win with a three-game winning streak at No. 5. Despite the team’s score, the Lions were able to win the third game. Farida Mohamed handled Molly Chadwick, 11-3, 9-11, 11-3, 11-5. Mohamed, the 2021-22 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, improved to 3-0 on the year.

“Two-all in the match and we had two players in two-all games at number three and number nine,” Sachvie said. “Both Sarah and Amal were great, but at the end of the day one or two shots decide the result. We went from double to 4-2 down. In the end, a couple of balls here and there decided the match.”

Order of finish (women):
2, 7, 4, 6, 9, 3, 5, 8, 1

MEN’S SUMMARY
No. 3 Princeton 6, No. 9 Columbia 3

Princeton (2-0, 1-0 Ivy) swept each opener and pulled out a five-game decision at No. 9 to take a commanding 4-0 lead. Ryan Chen had won his first two games, 12-10 and 11-3, and had game point in the third leading 10-7, but Avi Agarwal won the third, 12-10, before coming back.

Columbia (1-3, 0-1 Ivy) scored its first point when Rutvik Rau polished off a three-game sweep in Game 6. Rau improved to 2-1 on the season and defeated Hassan Khalil 11-8, 12-10, 11-6 to open men’s play.

Chaitanya Shah finished off the second wave of matches with a four game win moments later. The senior improved to 3-1 this season, splitting the first two games with Ahmed Wael before dropping the final two 11-8, 11-9.

It stayed Sameer Saxena (8), Zach Yum (5) and Harold Castiaux (1) the chance to take home the winnings. Saxena and Nam each won their opening games but the Tigers needed just one point and got it from the top. Daelum Mawji swept Harold Castiaux11-6, 11-2, 11-7, wins the match.

“It can be mentally tough to know that the team game is over and still perform to your potential,” Sachvie added. “It’s something we’ve been working on and our goal is to improve every week. These guys have to make an individual effort and we had a really good fight there. Tough result, but not for lack of effort.”

Nam won a thrilling five games against Alastair Cho 11-5, 12-10, 4-11, 8-11, 11-7.

Order of finish (men):
4, 7, 2, 9, 6, 3, 1, 8, 4

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