Trinity Men's Squash Survives Marathon Match Against Rochester by David Kingsley January 24, 2016 - Hartford, Conn.
- Sophomore Rick Penders (Maastricht, Netherlands) outdueled Mario
Yanez (Aguascalientes, Mexico), 3-2, with an 11-9 win in the fifth game
to break a 4-4 tie and give the Trinity College Bantams a 5-4 victory
over the University of Rochester Yellowjackets in men's squash action
this afternoon at Kellner Center. Trinity, the defending National
Champions and the nation's top-ranked team, improves to 13-0 with its
fourth win in five days, while the No. 5-ranked Yellowjackets drop to
5-2 with their first loss in five matches. Trinity had knocked
off No. 2-ranked Pennsylvania and Rochester had edged No. 3-ranked
Harvard yesterday to set today's match up as a possible battle for the
top spot in the next College Squash Association (CSA) National Rankings.
The
match started out in promising fashion for Trinity, as first-year Nku
Patrick (San ) won, 3-0, at the No. 9 position, while senior co-captain
Juan Vargas (Bogota, Colombia) and sophomore James Evans (Maidstone,
England) posted 3-1 victories at No. 3 and No. 6, respectively.
Rochester answered in resounding fashion with a sweep of the second
wave that included a 3-0 shutout at No. 8 by sophomore Ben Pitfield
(Toronto, Ontario), a 3-1 triumph by rookie Lawrence Kuhn (George,
South Africa), and a dramatic 3-2 win at the second spot on the ladder
by Ryosei Kobayashi (Yokohama, Japan).
Trinity sophomore
Omar Allaudin (Lahore, Pakistan) put a halt to the Yellowjacket
momentum with a 3-0 win in the No. 7 match, giving the home squad a 4-3
lead. Rochester sophomore Tomotaka Endo (Kawasaki, Japan)
responded with an 11-9 win in the fourth game to post a 3-1 win over
Trintiy first-year Tom De Mulder (Gent, Belgium) to tie the match at
4-all with Penders and Yanez tied at 1-1 in the last competition of the
match. The teams' top two battled to a 2-2 tie and were knotted
at 9-9 in the fifth game when Penders took two points in a row to
clinch the decision for the Bantams.
MATCH RESULTS 1. TC- Rick Penders d. Mario Yanez, 8-11, 11-6, 11-8, 5-11, 11-9 2. R- Ryosei Kobayashi d. Michael Craig, 10-12, 11-2, 6-11, 11-7, 11-5 3. TC- Juan Vargas d. Neil Cordell, 13-11, 11-5, 8-11, 11-6 4. R- Tomotaka Endo d. Tom De Mulder, 9-11, 11-4, 11-7, 11-9 5. R- Lawrence Kuhn d. Affeeq Ishmail, 11-4, 11-7, 10-12, 11-9 6. TC- James Evans vs. Michelangelo Bertocchi, 11-13, 15-13, 11-6, 11-3 7. TC- Omar Allaudin vs. Aria Fazelimanesh, 15-13, 11-8, 11-4 8. R- Ben Pitfield d. Tor Christoffersen, 11-4, 11-9, 11-5 9. TC- Nku Patrick d. Rodrigo Porras 11-7, 11-1, 11-9 Trinity (Conn.) 5 vs. Rochester 4
