“I should have really taken it to him and the match may have turned out differently, but to his credit he hit four of the most incredible winners I’ve ever seen in a row to win that first game.”
Broadbent suffered a hamstring injury in practice on Wednesday and sat out against Penn to prepare for Princeton. Perhaps due to the long layoff and the lingering effects of the injury, Broadbent’s play deteriorated starkly after the first game and he dropped the next two, 9-0 and 9-3, to the Egyptian star.
Unfortunately for the Crimson, co-captain Thomas Storch and sophomore Indrek Vainu were not able to prevail at Nos. 7 and 9, respectively.
Storch lost a tough, four-game match to Dent Wilkens while Rob Siverd defeated Vainu in three tight games.
Harvard No. 5 Ziggy Whitman also had a difficult day, losing to intercollegiate No. 23 Pearson in three games despite turning in a gritty performance.
To the Crimson’s delight, sophomore intercollegiate No. 10 Mike Blumberg looked as if he might pull off a stunning upset over Yik at No. 3.
Despite losing the first game 9-6, Blumberg won the next two by 9-7 and looked primed for the victory. But Yik came back strong, winning the final two games, 9-7 and 9-4, in another matchup of 2002 All-Americans.
“That was easily one of the top intercollegiate squash matches I’ve seen in four years at Harvard,” Patterson said.
Remarkably, the loss was the first for Blumberg in two years of dual meet competition for the Crimson.
“I wasn’t thinking about Yik as a player or all the things he has done in the past,” Blumberg said. “I was simply focusing on playing my game. In the middle games, I was really in a good rhythm, moving him around a lot and forcing him into mistakes.”
Harvard 7, Penn 2
In the Penn match, things went much more smoothly for the Crimson, as it won 7-2 without its top player in the lineup.
All-American Richard Repetto narrowly defeated Bullock in four games at the top spot, while sophomore Bradley Allen dropped a heartbreaker in five games to Dan Rotteneberg at the ninth position. However, each of Harvard’s middle seven players won despite playing up a spot due to Broadbent’s absence.
“I was surprised at how good Penn was,” Whitman said. “They really played well. The Ivy League has gotten a lot better over the last few years and Penn is proof of that. It is very tough to play up even one spot in a league this competitive and it was good experience for all the guys on our team and the Penn match served as great practice for Princeton.”
Despite their split this weekend and second year in a row without the Ivy League championship, the Crimson players believe the Princeton disappointment can push them to play harder late in the year.
If coach Satinder Bajwa’s players defeat Yale Feb. 19 in the Crimson’s final regular season match, they will be on pace to play Princeton again in the semifinals of the NISRA team national championship in two weeks.
“This is a great team we played today, yet all of our losses were pretty close,” Whitman said. “Playing that well against Princeton gives us the confidence that we are one of the elite teams in college squash and just makes us hungrier for another shot at them.”