Members of the Virginia squash team competed in the CSA Individual Championships over the weekend, with six members from both the men’s and women’s squads making the trip to New York in hopes of bringing home silverware. The multi-tournament style allowed for multiple Cavaliers a chance to vie for their bracket’s top spot.
The championships were separated into multiple tournaments, which varied in difficulty. On the men’s side, the Pool Trophy was the top tournament, starting with 32 contestants and narrowing through a single elimination bracket format. Graduate student Karim Elbarbary, junior JP Tew and freshman Juan Torres Lara competed in this tournament, which was filled with other top players from around the country.
The women’s equivalent to the Pool Trophy is known as the Ramsay Cup, wherein graduate Meagan Best, junior Lia Tammam, graduate Maria Moya and freshman Maria Min took part. The identically structured 32-team bracket style competition would also feature college squash’s absolute best.
Outside these more prestigious competitions, the men’s Molloy Cup and women’s Holleran Cup offered strong competition in smaller, eight-team brackets. Junior Maxwell Velazquez, sophomore Dylan Moran and freshman Nathan Rosenzweig were split into subsections of the tournament — Velasquez and Rosenzweig in the east, with Moran in the south.
Similarly, on the women’s side, senior Maureen Foley and freshman Maryam Mian had the opportunity to play against solid competition in the north and west subsections, respectively.
Pool Trophy
All three Virginia athletes emerged victorious from the first round of play. Elbarbary had been previously seeded and therefore advanced by default into the next round, but Torres Lara’s first taste of collegiate championship play was a fruitful one, gaining a clean sweep on his opponent. Tew’s bout against Princeton’s senior Zain Ahmed was tightly contested, needing all five games and an 11-9 last game victory to decide who would move on.
Saturday’s round of 16 proved less than ideal for Tew and Torres Lara, though. Although they avoided being swept, both were handily defeated by their opponents from Pennsylvania and Yale. On the other hand, Elbarbary’s day was more fruitful, and in his third time competing in the top tournament, he won in four games.
Elbarbary’s run would come to an end in the quarterfinals, tying the match at 1-1 after two games but then falling in the following two by 11-6 and 11-4 margins to Trinity’s junior Joachim Chuah.
Ramsay Cup
The women’s top tournament competition proved less than successful for most of Virginia’s competitors. Moya, Min and Tammam were defeated in straight games in the first round. Conversely, Best advanced past the first round by default and didn’t let it go to waste, defeating her Quaker opponent in the round of 16 and advancing to the quarterfinal.
Her run would end just before the semifinal, similarly to Elbarbary. Best bowed out with a loss in four games to Cornell’s junior Aishwarya Khubchandani. Despite no Cavalier advancing to the semifinals on either side, Virginia showed resilience to keep up with college squash’s best on the national stage.
Molloy Cup
Velasquez and Rosenzweig’s run in the east bracket was a mixed bag, with Velasquez emerging victorious in an extremely tight game against opponents from Western Ontario, and Rosenzweig losing in a match where he initially led 2-1. Velasquez’s semifinal game went in similar fashion, also losing a grip on the match after gaining a 2-1 lead through the first three games.
In the south bracket, Moran had an amazing performance which culminated with him winning a hotly contested final that took all five possible games to decide. After relatively breezing through the quarter and semi-finals, the Mustangs’ Daniel Deverill took a 2-0 lead in the final. Moran would go on to win the next three games 11-6, 11-7 and 11-6 to take the Molloy Cup south bracket trophy home.
Moran has been one of the Cavaliers’ most consistent contributors on the season, amassing a 5-2 record. This national tournament victory should give him confidence, and perhaps make Coach Mark Allen rethink playing Moran from the 4th and 5th spots.
Holleran Cup
In the north bracket, Foley would lose her first matchup in five games after squandering a 2-1 lead — a common theme among Virginia’s competitors over the weekend. Inversely, Mian also found success in the second-tier tournament, winning the west bracket in a dramatic final game. Likewise to Moran, Mian won her first two matches easily before stepping up to face Harvard’s junior Molly Stoltz.
Mian and Stoltz were tied at two games apiece in the final, yet Mian took control late to emerge victorious by a 12-10 margin and take home the title for Virginia. In just her first season for the Cavaliers, Mian has emerged as one of Virginia’s toughest and most skilled players. Providing her with more opportunities to gain top-level experience should be one of Coach Allen’s prerogatives.
Despite some leads being thrown away and disappointing outcomes in the most competitive tournaments, the Cavaliers played solidly over the weekend. Sweetened by Moran and Mian’s championships, Virginia will look to put together an impressive team effort when they enter the MASC championships. The quest for conference glory is set to begin Feb. 7 and last until Feb. 9, with matches being played in Lancaster, Pa.
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