Ephs Fall to Dartmouth

HANOVER, NH – Women's squash ended their season with a 6-3 loss to Dartmouth on Wednesday evening. The Ephs finish their season with an overall winning record of 14-8.

Playing on the road, Williams started off strong, winning two out of the three first round matches. Ananya Mahalingam-Dhingra (#9) had a close battle with her Dartmouth opponent, trading the first two games with scores of 11-8 and then 10-12. Mahalingam-Dhingra was able to close out the match after another two tight games and won 3-1. Co-captain Ellie O'Neill (#3), playing in her last regular season match as an Eph, came through in her match as well. After dropping the first game, O'Neill stormed back to take the next three and won her match in four games.

With a loss from Ellen Coombe (#6), the Ephs were up 2-1 in the match with a very realistic chance of pulling off an upset. In the next round of matches, however, only one went in favor for Williams. Hayley Parsons (#2) came back from a 2-1 deficit only to dominate the next two games 11-2 and 11-4 in route to her five-game match victory. The women almost got another point from co-captain Caroline Sawin (#5), who narrowly lost in five games. With that loss and a loss from the Eph number 8, Alyssa Ritchie, the match was now even at 3-3.

Going into the last round, the first team to win at least two individual matches would take the overall match. Nicole Friedman (#1) had a tough matchup and fell in three games. Dartmouth now only needed one more point to secure the victory. Nicole Feshbach (#4) found herself down 1-0, won the next game, but fell 13-11 in the third game and 11-8 in the fourth. With Feshbach's 3-1 loss, Dartmouth had 5 points and the match was decided. Charlotte Walsh (#7) was playing her fifth game at this point, but was defeated 11-8 to end the overall match 6-3 in favor of Dartmouth.

"Everyone played well today," commented Sawin. "We won three matches and were close in a few others, which is better than we have done against Dartmouth in the past few years. We are looking forward to building off of this at nationals this weekend."

The Ephs will travel to Boston to play in the B Division at the CSA Squash Championships. Currently, Williams is seeded fourth and will play their first round match against Middlebury on Friday, February 13^th at noon. The women have run into Midd twice now, winning both contests 5-4 and then 6-3. 

Individual Results: