Trinity Women's Squash Opens Howe Cup National Tourney Friday Against Yale
Hartford, Conn., Feb. 10 -- The Trinity College women's squash team, which finished the 2008-09 regular season with a 10-2 record that included three 9-0 victories to capture Trinity's third consecutive New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championship title before a 7-2 loss at No. 4-ranked Harvard last Wednesday to close the dual match slate. Trinity will be the No. 4 seed at the College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championships (Howe Cup) this weekend at Harvard and will play against No. 5-seeded Yale in the quarterfinal round on Friday, Feb. 13 at 2:30 p.m., followed by the semifinals on Feb. 14 at 11:30 a.m., and the finals on Feb. 15 at 2 p.m..
The Howe Cup consists of the top eight teams in intercollegiate squash in a three-round, single elimination tournament. Trinity, coached by Wendy Bartlett (25th season, 264-81), has been to the Howe Cup Finals four times and won the national title in 2002 and 2003. The Bantams finished third in the Howe Cup in 2007-08 with a 5-4 loss to Pennsylvania in the semifinals and a 5-4 defeat against Yale in the third-place match. Princeton is the tournament's No. 1 seed, followed by No. 2-seeded Harvard, No. 3-seed and defending champion Pennsylvania, Trinity, and Yale, with all five possessing the talent to win the national crown this season. Trinity lost at Penn, 5-4, and defeated Yale, by the same score in January. The Bantams and Princeton did not play a regular season match.
Trinity has a combined individual dual match record of 88-16 in its 12 matches this year, and freshman Nour Bahgat (Cairo, Egypt) leads Trinity with a 9-0 record while playing all of her matches at the No. 1 spot. Fellow rookie Katie Wymard (Radnor, Pa.) is 7-0, while junior co-captain Jo-Ann Jee (Kuching, Malaysia) is 9-1, sophomore Robyn Williams (Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) is 8-1, and freshman Andrea Echevarria (San Salvador, El Salvador) has a team-high 10 wins against two losses.
