Comment on this article
Women’s Squash Topples Trinity
March/April 2004
by R. Ryan Hartnett ’05
On January 21, Yale’s squash teams had a historic opportunity: the Eli men and women, both ranked second nationally, each had the chance to dethrone top-ranked Trinity, whose women’s and men’s teams have had an iron grip on college squash for the past three and five years, respectively. Both Yale teams had a fair shot at the Bantams, but it was the women who were getting the most pregame buzz. True, the Trinity women had an unbeaten streak of 30 matches, stretching back to the 2000-01 season. But the Yale women’s team has been hailed by coaches and players alike as the most talented and deep in Yale’s history. Earlier in the season, they beat the Stanford men 9-0 in the first-ever collegiate squash match pitting women against men. And it was the women’s team that prevailed over Trinity, 5-4—which led ultimately to the team’s first national championship since 1992.
Last season, Yale’s women lost handily to Trinity in the regular season (7-2) and in the Howe Cup finals (9-0). When Yale dropped the first three matches on January 21, it looked like more of the same. But the Elis came back, with victories at the bottom three spots and a split of the next two matches.
| |
The cheers grew louder, the collective gasps more strained.
|
With the teams even at four wins each, it was all up to Michelle Quibell '06, who had to face Trinity’s Amina Helal, two-time defending women’s national collegiate champion. Quibell dropped the first game 9-7 but bounced back to take the second game 9-1. As other matches concluded, stray spectators made their way over to the Nicholas F. Brady '52 Exhibition Court to watch. The cheers grew louder, the collective gasps more strained, and the silences during points more tense as Quibell and Helal traded shots. On this night, Quibell was too good for Helal. She took the next two games 9-6 and 9-3. After winning the final point, she looked to her teammates for an answer to the big question: had they won the match? But her teammates were already storming the court, with captain Devon Dalzell '04 pointing a finger skyward, the sign of the new number one.
Quibell says she knew this Eli team had the skill and toughness to win, but she still had a hard time grasping the sense of victory. “I knew that we could do it, but in my mind, I knew that there was a huge possibility that we wouldn’t do it,” Quibell says. “This [Trinity] team has been undefeated for years and years and years. It’s unbelievable.”
The men were not so successful, losing 6-3 as the Bantams extended their record unbeaten streak to 94 matches. “This is a tougher matchup for us than the women,” men’s head coach Dave Talbott said, before the match. “There’s a little dropoff in the Trinity women’s depth. Their men’s team is strong all the way through. Our key is going to be to turn it into a long, grinding match. If the games are short and there’s a lot of shot-making, we’re not going to win.”
The matches were short: only one out of nine went beyond four games. Five of the matches ended up 3-0, and four of those five were in Trinity’s favor.
fter the win over Trinity, the women’s team went on to clinch the regular-season national championship—and an Ivy league title—with a 7-2 win over Harvard on Valentine’s Day at the Brady Squash Center.
Quibell’s victory over Helal and Trinity further solidified her confidence, and she defeated Helal again in individual play at the Constable Invitational on January 25 to earn her own number-one ranking. Women’s head coach and squash legend Mark Talbott, Dave Talbott’s brother, says he has high expectations for Quibell, who plans to go pro after she graduates.
“This win is really a step forward for her,” Mark Talbott says. “She’s getting to the next level. The future for her is unlimited.”
Old Magic Proves Elusive for Basketball Team
by Carl Bialik ’01
Although Yale’s basketball teams regularly play half a season’s worth of non-conference games in November and December, everyone knows the real season starts in January with the Ivy League campaign. So the men’s team prepared to face Brown at home in its Ivy opener on January 16 with much anticipation. Could they recreate the magic of two years ago, when a group of mostly freshmen and sophomores earned a share of the Ivy title and Yale’s first postseason win in history?
Two added years of experience, plus the activation of transfer Dominick Martin from Princeton, created high expectations. But Yale would have to start by beating Brown, and senior Paul Vitelli would need to shake off a tendency to play more like a guard than the 6'-9” power forward he is. Too often this season and last, Vitelli contented himself with three-point bombs, driving down his points and offensive-rebound numbers.
The Bulldogs had started the season in November with a phenomenal near-upset of UConn, but their performance since had been mediocre, and their overall record was 5-8 going into the Brown game. There were nearly 2,300 fans for this key game, and the Yale side filled the old arena with championship-level sound.
The Yale offense, now like two years ago, thrives on perpetual motion. In their finer moments that night, all five Bulldogs cut from the perimeter to the post and back as the ball whipped between them until it landed in the hands of an open shooter. Yet on too many possessions, a quick pass went awry or the ball was on the perimeter as the shot clock ticked away. On defense, Yale didn’t appear to have the relentlessness of the 2002 championship team, giving up too many points on unchallenged layups and three pointers.
Vitelli, at least, repeatedly asserted his position near the basket, leading to a career-high 22 points and 7 offensive boards. In the first half, Vitelli’s inside play helped Yale match Brown basket for basket, even as leading scorer and center Martin sat on the bench with an ankle sprain. When Martin joined the game in the second half, Yale clearly looked like the better team.
But the Bulldogs couldn’t pull away, and sloppy play—missed layups, too many fouls—ultimately did them in. Senior Matt Minoff missed a free throw with 1:10 left that might have clinched the game. The Bulldogs couldn’t get a hand in Patrick Powers’s face when he nailed three three-pointers—one near the end of regulation and two in the first two minutes of overtime—that turned a narrow Yale lead into an insurmountable edge for Brown.
The offense hurt matters by turning the ball over three times in the first 2:03 of overtime. “Turnovers have plagued us all year,” Minoff said after the game. “They seem to show up at big times, in bunches.”
At least the crowd was up for the occasion. When freshman Casey Hughes—the first New Haven native to play for Yale in more than a quarter-century—stole the ball and dunked it to knot the score at 25 late in the first half, the packed Yale side erupted in cheers. And when Brown’s Jaime Kilburn stepped to the line with 39 seconds left in the second half to take two free throws that could have won the game, you could easily credit the deafening crowd with his first, crucial miss.
But he made the second, and Edwin Draughan’s last-second shot rimmed out. After a dismal overtime, Yale had lost its Ivy League opener, 85-75. Vitelli wasn’t giving up, though. “This is not over. Nothing is over,” he said. “We have the whole season to look forward to.”
A week later in Providence, the Bulldogs fell again to Brown by double digits, coughing up the ball 25 times. Their inexplicably flat performance made the chance of a championship seem remote—and made the 2002 league title seem a distant memory.  |
