PHILADELPHIA - The No. 28 Haverford College women's squash team (7-8) opened up Epps Cup play at the CSA Women's Team Championships in resounding fashion on Friday evening, taking down No. 34 Mount Holyoke (7-13) by an 8-1 final to advance to Saturday's semifinals. The victory was Haverford's second this season over Mount Holyoke, as the two sides previously met at the Wesleyan Round Robin, with Haverford prevailing to open January.
In the first individual match to reach its conclusion at the Penn Squash Center, Haverford tallied a dominating sweep at the seventh flight, with Aman Hamdard breezing past Janiqua Davis while allowing just 10 total points to her Lyons opponent (11-2, 11-3, 11-5). The next match winner was Caroline Smith, who allowed just 11 total points to Ku Paw at the third flight, taking a first-game victory by an 11-1 final before identical 11-5 score lines in the final two matches to secure the sweep.
Emilia Zegers then roared past Dnyaneshwari Haware (11-9, 11-8, 9-4) at the fifth flight, taking 11-9, 11-8, and 11-4 victories as the first round of matches concluded with the Fords fully in control of the momentum with the early 3-0 lead. Amy Saxon put a tally in the Haverford column at the ninth flight with her sweep of Keying Lin (11-3, 11-6, 11-0), and suddenly the Fords were on the brink of clinching the match with Amelia Stevens and Ariana Solecki still on court at the first and fourth flights, respectively.
Stevens was the one to put Haverford over the top with the fifth match win of the day at the fourth flight. After fending off Tina Mei in the first game, needing extra points to dispatch the Mount Holyoke player at 14-12, Stevens found a second wind and rattled off 11-2 and 11-1 wins to clinch a sweep and the fifth individual tally of the night for Haverford.
Solecki was later locked in a drawn-out battle with Habiba Abouelatta at the first flight, as the two top players locked horns in an epic for the second time this season. Solecki fell behind 12-10, but stormed back with 11-9 and 11-5 victories before dropping a hard-fought 11-9 fourth game. The final game trended towards Abouelatta, as she was the first to seven points before Solecki tied things at 7-all. Closing things out on a big run, Solecki was an eventual 11-8 winner for Haverford's sixth tally, reversing the decision from when the two met earlier this season.
Maisie Smith had little trouble at the sixth flight, breezing past Elba Barra Montgomery, putting the Fords up 7-0 with her 11-5, 11-2, 11-7 sweep. At the eighth flight, Paige Gershuny evaded Clarice Xu as Xu dropped the first two games but rallied with consecutive 11-5 wins in the third and fourth before taking the loss in the decisive fifth game.
In the final match to finish, Catherine Fortin took the first game from Xaria Durocher at the second flight, but lost the second, setting up a 15-13 extra points triumph in the third game. Durocher roared back to tie things at 2-2 with her 13-11 win, setting the stage for a decisive fifth game that Fortin rallied to win by an 11-8 final to wrap up the evening.
Haverford now advances to Saturday's Epps Cup Semifinals, the squad's second consecutive semifinal berth, where the Fords will take on No. 27 Bates. The evening matchup is slated to begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Penn Squash Center, with action slated to hit courts two, five, and six. The two sides have met just five times and have not faced off in the CSA Team Championships since Haverford's very first appearance in 1994, a 6-3 win. The other semifinal will featured No. 26 St. Lawrence and No. 29 Hamilton.