In addition to Broadbent, two other freshmen should make an immediate impact—Princeton’s Yasser El Halaby and No. 4 Yale’s Julian Illingworth. Each has already staked his claim to his team’s top spot, with El Halaby vaulting Yik and last year’s intercollegiate No. 2, Will Evans, narrowly beating Bullock last weekend at the Ivy scrimmage. Illingworth, who defeated Broadbent in the USSRA 19-and-under National finals last winter, also beat Samper at the Price-Bullington Invitational earlier this month. Still, Bajwa believes he got the better freshman.

“Sometimes in juniors one player develops a little bit quicker than another,” Bajwa said. “In William’s case, maybe he developed slightly later [than Illingworth], but William will develop in college and is likely to pass him.”

The Ivies, then, are shaping up to be a three-horse race between the Tigers, who won the Ivy scrimmage, Yale, who beat Harvard 7-2 in the semifinals, and the Crimson. Whether the winner will emerge too drained to challenge Trinity’s reign or battle-tested enough to compete with the Bantams remains to be seen, but Bullock, for one, subscribes to the latter.

“If you can do well in the Ivy League, there’s no reason you shouldn’t give Trinity a pretty good fight,” he said.

But besting the four-time defending champion and reclaiming its place as the best in collegiate squash will require Harvard to overcome a different historical precedent.

“Sometimes we’ve relied on the middle core and the lower players,” Bajwa said. “Now we’re going to have to rely on the middle core and the higher-level players.”

—Staff writer Alan G. Ginsberg can be reached at aginsber@fas.harvard.edu.