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Harvard tops No. 1-ranked Penn to win Potter Cup and national title in squash

The Quakers were top-ranked but the No. 2-ranked Crimson won the last match to claim the title.

Penn’s Nathan Kueh (right) reacts to losing a point to Harvard’s Ido Burstein as Penn and Harvard play for the CSA championship at Penn Squash Center in Philadelphia, Pa. on Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Harvard won the championship.
Penn’s Nathan Kueh (right) reacts to losing a point to Harvard’s Ido Burstein as Penn and Harvard play for the CSA championship at Penn Squash Center in Philadelphia, Pa. on Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Harvard won the championship.Read moreDAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer
    by Lochlahn March, For The Inquirer
    Published 

For the third straight season, Harvard squash is the Potter Cup champion.

The No. 2 Crimson edged host and No. 1 Penn, 5-4, by winning the final match Sunday to defend their national title in Philadelphia. Penn’s loss was its first of the season, ending a 18-match streak that included a 6-3 win over Harvard on Jan. 15. That was the Quakers’ first victory over the Crimson since 2016. Though Penn is the Ivy League champion, it finishes the season as runners-up to the College Squash Association national title.

The Quakers swept No. 8 Drexel on Friday and defeated No. 4 Yale, 6-3, Saturday to make it to Sunday’s championship. This is the Quakers’ second Potter Cup final appearance in program history, the last time coming in 2020 when Penn lost all but one match to the Crimson.

This time, the final was much closer. The Quakers started off strong in front of their home crowd, with freshman Roger Baddour winning 3-0 in less than 30 minutes. Penn co-captain and top seed Andrew Douglas took Harvard’s Victor Crouin, No. 21 in the world professionally, to five games before losing. Sophomore Nick Spizzirri gave the Quakers a 2-1 edge, winning his match, 3-2.

Douglas is also the first Quakers squash player to be named first team All-Ivy for four years since Penn coach Gilly Lane accomplished the same feat as a student in 2007.

Junior Saksham Choudhary finished the weekend and the season undefeated individually at 17-0 for Penn, sweeping his opponent in three games.

Senior Aly Abou Eleinen, who joined Douglas on first team All-Ivy, suffered his first loss this season when he was swept by Harvard junior Marwan Tarek. In just three seasons for the Quakers, Elenien is one of two Penn squash players to notch 50 wins, a milestone Eleinen hit on Friday against Drexel.

Junior Dillon Huang came back from an 0-2 deficit to win three games in a row, clinching his match and knotting the overall score at 4-4. Penn freshman and Ivy League rookie of the year Nathan Kueh lost to Harvard sophomore Ido Burstein in three games in the last match going as Penn to the defending national champions.

The Quakers will be back in action for the final time this season at the CSA Individual Championships on March 4-6, hosted at the Arlen Specter U.S. Squash Center on Drexel’s campus.