The No. 5 Elis find themselves one step closer to second place in the Ancient Eight after this weekend’s victory over Dartmouth.
On Friday morning — pushed up from the evening start time due to Friday’s snowstorm — the Bulldogs (11-3, 4-2 Ivy) decisvely blanketed Dartmouth 9-0. The weekend’s second matchup against the Harvard Crimson, originally scheduled for Sunday, was postponed due to the snow.
The faithful hometown crowd at Brady Squash Center was not deterred by the impending snowstorm and saw the Bulldogs explode out of the blocks from the start. Of the nine matches played, seven were won in decisive three-game sweeps.
Leading the way, No. 2 nationally ranked Millie Tomlinson ’14 in the first spot and team captain Katie Ballaine ’13 in the second did not allow more than five points in any game and put an exclamation point on the team’s aim to finish out the season in second place. Katie Harrison ’13 in the eighth spot provided some suspense when she dropped her first game, before defiantly rallying back in a nail-biting four games. Gwen Tilghman ’14 in the fourth spot battled in a cat-and-mouse match as well. Tilghman convincingly won the first game 11-5, only to fall 13-11 in the second and then to courageously rally back 11-5, 11-5 to put her opponent away.
The Elis are currently in a tie for third place in the Ivy League with Penn (11-2, 4-2 Ivy). Princeton (11-0, 7-0 Ivy) has clinched first place with an undefeated league record, and Harvard (11–1, 5–1 Ivy) still hangs onto second.
The Crimson have won the last two meetings against Yale, including last year’s National Championship. Should Yale beat Harvard and Penn lose to Cornell (12-4, 3-3 Ivy), the Elis will clinch second place.
“We are very excited by the chance to prove ourselves at the Howe Cup. We are going in with no pressure, so we can just relax [and] play our best. Hopefully, this will result in another National Championship win [for the program],” Tomlinson said.
Tilghman said the team definitely has a chance to compete for the Cup, especially because the team boasts home-court advantage.
Yale is hosting the National Championship at the Brady Squash Center this weekend, Feb. 15, 16 and 17.