Alicia McConnell Record Set Straight, Correction of US Squash President's Cup Posting by Rob Dinerman
photo missouristate.edu
July 28, 2015
The U. S. Squash article promoting its Women in Sports Day event planned during the 2015 U. S. Open, which DSR linked to
on July 25th, noted that Alicia McConnell will be awarded the
President’s Cup and stated that, “In one month in 1981, she won the
national juniors, national intercollegiate and U. S. Nationals --- a
sweep of titles no one has accomplished before or since in the same
year.”
But McConnell was still in high school during the 1980-81
school year, hence wasn’t eligible to play in that year’s
intercollegiates, which was won by Jane Giammattei of Pine Manor ---
and in that year’s U. S. Nationals, McConnell lost in the final to the
successfully defending 1980 champion Barbara Maltby. It wasn’t until
the following season, in February/March of 1982, that McConnell won the
first of her record seven-straight U. S. Nationals and the first of her
three-straight intercollegiate crowns (there would likely have been a
fourth as well had she not turned pro prior to the outset of her senior
year at Penn, making her ineligible for intercollegiate competition
that 1984-85 season).
She also took the Under-19 national juniors for the
third-straight time during the 1981-82 season in her last year of
eligibility. After winning the U. S. Nationals from 1982-88, she
decided not to defend that title in ’89, and her run of 11-straight U.
S. National Doubles crowns --- from 1996-2004 with Demer Holleran and
in 2005 and 2006 with Pochi Holdefer --- was (literally) snapped when
she suffered an Achilles tendon rupture while playing in the 2007
National Doubles event at the Merion Cricket Club.
