ITHACA, N.Y. — The women's squash team is out to defend its Kurtz Cup title this weekend, when it competes at the College Squash Association's 'B' Division national championship this weekend in New Haven, Connecticut.
 
The Kurtz Cup features the nation's ninth- through 16th-ranked teams, and Cornell (5-10) enters the weekend ranked third in the bracket and 11th overall in the country. That lands the Big Red a quarterfinal match against No. 14 George Washington (7-14) at noon Friday at Yale's Brady Squash Center.
 
The Big Red won the program's third Kurtz Cup last year, recording a pair of upsets in the semifinals and finals to avenge earlier losses to its competition. In fact, the path to defending its title could very well follow the exact same path given how the brackets lay out. As was the case in last year's field, Dartmouth is the top seed, followed by Virginia and Cornell.
 
The Big Red, which has now won its last three Kurtz Cup appearances in 2007, 2008 and last year, starts play against a George Washington squad it swept, 9-0, on Jan. 26 in a neutral-site match played at Yale. It improved the Big Red's all-time record against the Colonials to 9-0. Last year was the first time the programs had ever met in the postseason, with the Big Red securing an 8-1 victory to advance into the semifinals.
 
Sophomore Sivasangari Subramaniam leads the Big Red with a sterling record of 12-1 from the No. 1 position throughout the regular season. After winning her first 12 matches of the year, Subramaniam suffered her first loss in her last time out – a four-game defeat at the hands over Harvard's Gina Kennedy in a rematch of last year's CSA Individual Championships final. Freshman McKenna Stoltz is 8-6 from the lower half of the lineup to rank second in team victories, and sophomore Lily Zelov is 7-8 from the No. 2 position.
 
One of the other Kurtz Cup quarterfinals, #12 Brown vs. #13 Williams, will run simultaneous to the action between Cornell and GW. The next wave of quarterfinals follows on the same courts, pitting #16 Bates against #9 Dartmouth, and #10 Virginia vs. #15 Middlebury,
 
The winner of Cornell's match and the Virginia/Middlebury match will square off against each other in the semifinals at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The losers will also play at that time Saturday in the consolation semifinals. Sunday's possible match times range from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. All of the Kurtz Cup's matches will be staged at Brady Squash Center.