15-Feb-08:
51 Teams & 500 Competitors Compete For Seven College Squash National Titles

A record field of fifty one collegiate squash teams, including 50 American colleges and universities and one from Canada, will compete in the National College Team Squash Championships, presented by Bear Stearns, this weekend in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Defending their national title, and their 176 match win streak, will be the Trinity College Bantams from Hartford, Connecticut.  Trinity has held the National title for nine consecutive years. Expected to give Trinity stiff competition will be the second ranked Princeton University Tigers.   Play begins Friday morning, February 15th, at 9:00 AM and goes through Sunday at 4:00PM.  Matches will be contested at four locations across Boston and Cambridge: Harvard University Murr Center, MIT Zesinger Center, Northeastern University Badger and Rosen Center, and the Belmont Hill School.

"Collegiate squash has simply exploded over the past decade," said CSA executive director Ron Beck, "That is displayed no where else more clearly than at this event.  We have four more teams competing this year than last, and eight more than two years ago. In fact we have had to add another division and another national trophy this year to make room for the growth." 

Titles will be awarded in seven divisions, with the competitors grouped into tiers of eight teams, based on most current national rankings.

Teams competing for the first time ever on the national college squash stage will include a group from Tulane University in New Orleans, a new team from the University of Vermont in Burlington, VT and a group from sports powerhouse, the University of North Carolina.

The biggest success story of the year, coming into the Nationals, is the rapidly improving team representing the University of Rochester, coached by former international pro star, Martin Heath.  Heath, the former world #4, has assembled a group of student athletes that has moved up seventeen ranking positions in two seasons, an unprecedented rise.  

Rochester is playing a special qualifying match against Williams College, prior to the start of the draw, for a position in the top bracket for the national championship Potter Cup.     The winner of Rochester /Williams , the eighth seed, draws defending champion Trinity in the first round.  Rounding out the top eight, who will compete for the national crown, are Princeton [2], Harvard [3], Yale [4] (Harvard and Yale play this Wednesday to determine their final order), Western Ontario, Canada [5], University of Pennsylvania [6], and Dartmouth [7].

Final draws and match times are available on the College Squash (CSA) website www.collegesquash.org .  Admission is free for all matches.  Spectator attendance for the weekend is expected to exceed five thousand.  The championships are sponsored by Bear Stearns, Harrow Sports and Dunlop Sport and are administered by the College Squash Association.

Photos courtesy Debra Tessier