Feb. 25, 2007

Results

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Navy's run at the Hoehn Division title at the 2007 College Squash Association Team Championship came to a heartbreaking end on Sunday afternoon, as the 11th-ranked Cornell Big Red (10-10) edged the No. 12 Midshipmen (23-8), 5-4, to take the title. Navy, who knocked off the top-seeded team in the division, Bates, on Saturday, finished 10th overall in the tournament and second in the Hoehn Division with a 2-1 record.

Navy's 10th-place finish is the highest since Craig Dawson took over the program seven years ago, while the Mids' 23 wins are just one off the record it set two years prior.

"This team really had some great results this season," said Dawson. "They played to the best of their ability all year long and the tournament showed the same drive and effort."

Cornell and Navy met on the squash courts just two weeks ago in Ithaca, N.Y., with Cornell nipping the Midshipmen, 5-4. The individual results from the CSA Team Championship were eerily similar to those in the earlier meeting.

Freshman Nils Mattsson (Spring House, Pa.) played his best match of the season, upending 57th-ranked Rohit Gupta at the No. 2 position. After dropping a three-game decision earlier this month, 78th-ranked Mattsson defeated Gupta, 9-1, 9-2, 9-1. With the win, Mattsson became the seventh Navy player to reach 20 wins this season, including the second freshman.

Sophomore Alastair Smith (Hillsborough, N.J.) pushed his winning streak to 11 in a row after defeating Ted Hill for the second time this season in a 3-0 decision at the No. 3 slot. Meanwhile, junior Jeff Sawin (Haverford, Pa.) captured his team-leading 24th win of the year by posting a 9-4, 9-0, 9-0 victory over Andrew McReynolds at No. 4. Sawin finished the season with an impressive 24-3 record and won his last 12 matches of the year.

Junior Brian Hamilton (Lake Forest, Ill.) needed four games to get past Cornell's Alex Wolff at the No. 9 position, however, the win preserved his 13-match winning streak to conclude the season. Hamilton also defeated Wolff earlier this season in three games.

While Mattsson reversed the tables on Gupta, Cornell's Omar Magalji flipped his loss to Christopher Zipf (Gladwyne, Pa.) on Feb. 10 into a win on Sunday. Zipf opened the match with a 9-4 win, but Magalji came back to sweep the next three games, 9-7, 9-5, 9-7 to take the point at No. 7. One of the most improved players on the roster this season, Zipf finished the year with a 24-7 record.

Navy senior Dan Hellier (Modesto, Calif.) ended his career with a loss to Ian Holton in four games. Hellier, who came to the Academy as a tennis player and later joined the squash team as a junior, finished the year with a 21-10 record.

### Go Navy ###