Men’s College Squash Shocker: Dartmouth Defeats Harvard For First Win Since 1946      
by Rob Dinerman

Dateline December 2nd --- In a stunning opening-night outcome, three-time reigning Ivy League champion Harvard was rocked 5-4 by Dartmouth in Hanover Tuesday night on a wild evening that culminated with a 13-11 fifth-game victory in the last match on court by No. 4 player Matt Giegerich, one of three talented Dartmouth freshmen whose varsity careers have now begun with the greatest team achievement in the history of Dartmouth squash. Since the resumption of intercollegiate play after World War II with the 1946-47 season, Harvard had never lost to Dartmouth, and only in 2009, when the Crimson fielded one of its weakest men’s teams, had Dartmouth won as many as four matches in any of its dual meets against Harvard during the past seven decades. Sadly from Dartmouth’s perspective Tuesday night, most of the student body was away on an extended Thanksgiving break, meaning that they missed the masterpiece that was authored by its squash team.

   Harvard, playing without top-four Dylan Murray and the injured Seif Abou El Einen, nevertheless swept the top three positions (with David Ryan winning at No. 1 over Dartmouth freshman Carson Spahr, Brian Koh surviving a tough four-gamer with Alvin Heumann at No. 2 and Bradley Smith straight-setting the third Dartmouth freshman, Samuel Epley, at No. 3) and took four of the top five. But Dartmouth took the Nos. 6 through 9 slots, evincing a level of depth that, coupled with the ability of several of its players to come through in the clutch moments of their matches, accounted for this truly eyebrow-raising outcome.

    Brian Giegerich started off what was destined to become a memorable night for the Giegerich family by winning a close match over Crimson freshman Ethan Shoihet at No. 9, taking a pivotal third game in a tiebreaker to take a 2-1 lead and pounding through the fourth 11-8. Giegerich’s teammate Nicholas Harrington came through at No. 6 over Alexi Gosset to counter-balance Smith’s win and give Dartmouth a 2-1 advantage after the first tier of matches. Crimson co-captains Koh and Devin McLaughlin notched victories at Nos. 2 and 5 over Heumann and Kyle Martino respectively, but Dartmouth No. 8 James Fisch prevailed 3-0 against Jack Cooper to even the team tally at three matches apiece coming into the last round of matches.

   Spahr, who this past spring teamed with his father, Chris, the head pro at the University Club of Boston, to win the U. S. Father & Son Doubles title for the second time in the past four years, lost to his more experienced Irish-born opponent Ryan, but Glen Brickmann kept Dartmouth’s hopes alive, emulating his teammate Brian Giegerich by rallying to a 14-12 third-game tally en route to a close four-game victory over Matt Roberts. This left the overall outcome to Matt Giegerich and his Harvard counterpart Madhav Dhingra, who led two games to one and later rallied from 4-8 to 9-8 in the fifth game. But Giegerich won the next two points in a tense sequence that eventually seesawed to 11-all.

  At this juncture, Dhingra, who usually plays solid, low-risk squash, inexplicably gambled on a backhand reverse-corner off the back wall that caught the top of the tin. Thus reprieved, and presented with his third match-ball, Giegerich buried a forehand drop shot winner for 13-11, leaving in his wake a transformed Ivy League landscape and sending the vaunted Crimson contingent back to Cambridge with an unexpected loss that they will have to chew on until the Ivy League schedule resumes in January.