ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's and women's squash teams will host a pair of Ivy League matches this weekend when Dartmouth and Harvard visit Belkin International Squash Courts. The Big Red takes on the Big Green at noon Saturday, then opposes Harvard at 11 a.m. Sunday. The Cornell women's team will then play William Smith in a non-league match at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
The Cornell men's team stands at 3-6 overall and 1-2 in Ivy League play entering the weekend. The Big Red was ranked eighth in the country last week by the College Squash Association, with new rankings due out later this week. Cornell dropped a pair of close matches last weekend at the Yale Round Robin, falling 6-3 to ninth-ranked Drexel and 5-4 to 13th-ranked George Washington. Sophomore
Liad Hare won both of his matches from the No. 8 position, and freshman
Ben Francis record his team-high sixth victory of the season.
Dartmouth ascended to fourth in the national rankings for the first time in program history last weekend after a 6-3 victory over Drexel on Jan. 16 to improve to 6-2 on the season. Those two losses are to the nation's top two teams, Trinity and Penn. Alvin Heumann is 3-0 from the No. 1 position. The Big Red trails in the all-time series against the Big Green, 39-19, including a pair of upset 5-4 losses to Dartmouth last season — the latter coming in the Hoehn Cup. Cornell had won eight consecutive matches against the Big Green before that.
Harvard (2-4), which opens the weekend Saturday at Columbia, is on a three-match losing streak for the first time since the 2010-11 season. David Ryan is 2-4 from the No. 1 position, and Seif Eleinen is 5-0 from the Nos. 7 and 8 spots. The Crimson was most recently ranked seventh in the country, having lost to then-No. 6 St. Lawrence and then-No. 5 Rochester by matching 5-4 scores in January. Harvard fell, 7-2, in its last outing against top-ranked Trinity. Cornell is 45-2 all-time against Harvard, with the most recent victory coming Dec. 4, 2010 in Ithaca.
On the women's side, Cornell (6-4, 1-2) essentially defended its No. 8 national standing last weekend with victories over No. 9 Drexel and No. 13 George Washington at the Yale Round Robin. Those victories were bookended by a 6-3 loss to fourth-ranked Stanford. Sophomore
Margaux Losty was a perfect 3-0 from the No. 3 position on the weekend, improving to 7-3 on the season alongside classmate
Emma Uible. Junior
Sydney Francis is 6-2 from the bottom third of the order.
Dartmouth (3-6, 0-3) was most recently ranked 10th, though it actually lost its loss to No. 9 Drexel on Jan. 16. The Big Green was also at the Yale Round Robin last weekend, dropping an 8-1 affair against Stanford before rebounding with an 6-3 triumph over Middlebury to an end a five-match losing skid. Dartmouth's other victories this season have come against Franklin & Marshall and George Washington in early December. Cornell is 10-14 all-time against the Big Green, though the Big Red has won the last eight meetings.
The defending national champion, Harvard maintains its No. 1 ranking with a 6-0 record to date this season with just a total of six points conceded. Michelle Gemmell, Kayley Leonard, Saumya Karki and Sophie Mehta are all a perfect 5-0, and Sabrina Sobhy is 3-0 from the No. 1 position. Cornell has never beaten Harvard in 21 all-time meetings.
William Smith (15-4), ranked 25th in the country, will wrap up the weekend with its annual visit to Belkin. Cornell has won all 13 meetings in the programs' histories, including 9-0 scores in 12 meetings since 2003.
