NEW HAVEN, Conn. — For the eighth consecutive season, the women's squash team will make a bid for a national championship at the College Squash Association's Howe Cup. The Big Red enters the event held Friday through Sunday at Yale ranked eighth, opening play against top-ranked Harvard at noon Friday.
Cornell (9-7) has finished sixth in each of the last four seasons, but slipped a couple of spots in the national rankings early this year — once after Stanford's strong start, then one more time when now-No. 7 Columbia squeeked out a 5-4 victory against the Big Red on Jan. 15. Since then, the Big Red held steady and wrapped up a 2-5 Ivy League campaign. Victories over No. 9 Dartmouth (Feb. 6) and No. 10 Drexel (Jan. 30) strengthened Cornell's hold on the eighth and final berth to the CSA's 'A' Flight for the national championships.
Junior
Sydney Francis has the highest winning percentage among Cornell competitors who have been in most of the squad's matches this season, posting an 8-4 record from the bottom third of the order. Sophomores
Margaux Losty and
Emma Uible are tied for the team lead in victories with matching 10-6 records, and senior co-captain
Reut Odinak is 9-6 from primarily the No. 6 position. Sophomore Michèle Garceau is the Big Red's No. 1 entry, posting a 6-8 mark to date.
The defending national champion, Harvard maintains its No. 1 ranking with a 10-0 record to date this season with just a total of six points conceded (three to No. 2 Penn, two to No. 4 Trinity and one to No. 6 Stanford). Michelle Gemmell, Saumya Karki and Sophie Mehta are all a perfect 9-0, and Sabrina Sobhy is 7-0 from the No. 1 position. A Cornell win on Friday would not only be the program's first against Harvard in 23 all-time meetings, it would also guarantee the Big Red its best season-ending national standing in program history.
The Howe Cup's other three quarterfinals will run simultaneous to the action between Cornell and Harvard. Those matchups are No. 4 Trinity vs. No. 5 Yale, No. 3 Princeton vs. No. 6 Stanford, and No. 2 Penn vs. No. 7 Columbia.
The winner of the Cornell-Harvard match will then take on the winner of the Trinity-Yale match at noon Saturday, while the losers will meet in a consolation semifinal at the same time. All four placement matches will start at 9, 11 or 11:30 a.m. Sunday.
Cornell has never won a Howe Cup quarterfinal in program history. The Big Red's best finish was in 2001, when it placed fifth following consolation bracket victories over Brown and Dartmouth. Cornell has finished sixth in 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014, and seventh in 2010 and 2011.
