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.
