Last night, the numbers did not tell the whole story.
The women’s squash team traveled to Cambridge, Mass., on Wednesday to face the Crimson but ultimately fell 3-6. Players said the results did not fully portray the intensity of the Bulldogs’ performance against Harvard.
“The girls fought really hard and matches could have gone either way,” assistant coach Pam Saunders said.
She added, “Harvard had home ground advantages, and the courts were weird. The kind of ball they used made it really hard for us.”
The three winning players for Yale were captain Tara Wadhwa ’09, Katharine Ettinger ’10 and Alia Aziz ’10. Wadhwa had a classic victory in what was probably the last match of her Yale career — the captain won 3-2 (8-10, 9-6, 7-9, 10-8, 9-2) after initially being on the backfoot.
“It was a hard match, and I went out of my way to give my best,” Wadhwa said. “I am happy that I was able to pull it off well.”
Ettinger had a clean victory and defeated her Harvard opponent 3-0 (9-1, 9-1, 9-1).
“I got lucky — it was an easy match,” Ettinger said. “But most of the other girls had really tough opponents and very close matches … some literally got down to one point.”
Aziz had a close match, beating her opponent 3-2 (9-7, 6-9, 5-9, 9-4, 9-8).
The No. 3 player said the team’s matches on Wednesday night were especially competitive.
“This was probably the first time women’s matches outlasted the men’s matches,” Aziz said. “It was exhausting to come up on Wednesday and play at 6:00.”
Players said Harvard performed very well as a team, but that many of the results were not as decisive as the scores would indicate.
“Most matches came down to lucky breaks and there was not really much to choose between the two teams,” Aziz said.
While the Bulldogs put up a tough fight, luck was unfortunately not on their side. Logan Greer ’11, who plays in the top spot for the team, battled it out during five games, but ultimately lost 3-2 (6-9, 6-9, 10-8, 9-6, 9-5). No. 2 Sarah Toomey ’11 also lost 3-2.
Alexandra Kerr ’12, who was playing with a sprained ankle, showed great sportsmanship but unfortunately was not able to pull out a win. Kerr finished 2-3 (9-6, 9-5, 6-9, 7-9, 9-5).
“With all the injuries, we had to come from behind to win this,” Wadhwa said. “Although our team lost, we put up a much better fight than the last one against Princeton. The matches really got down to the wire.”