HARTFORD, Conn.  — After the No. 6 Trinity College men's squash team led 3-1 through the first four matches, No. 1 Harvard University tied it at three at all in the second wave before the Crimson bested the Bantams 5-4 in the College Squash Association National Team Championship Finals at George A. Kellner Squash Courts on Sunday. The Navy & Gold hoisted the silver medal as Harvard earned first-place for its fourth-straight season. Trinity finishes the season with a 17-5 record and Harvard remained undefeated at 17-0. The Bantams look forward to the CSA National Singles Championships on March 3-5 at the Drexel University's Arlen Specter U.S. Squash Center in Philadelphia, Penn.

At the No. 8 spot, Khamal Cumberbatch (St. James, Barbados) secured an explosive 3-2 triumph over Liam Rotzoll and claimed the first win for Trinity. With the game tied at 1-1, the junior rallied back in game three with a huge 11-4 win, but Rotzoll took the fourth match to force a fifth. Cumberbatch came out on top in the final match with a close 11-9 win and put Trinity on the board, 1-0. 

Abdelrahman Nassar (New Cairo, Egypt) handle business on the court with back-to-back wins in the No. 2 spot before George Crowne won the third match, 11-7. After being down by two points in the fourth, the junior tied it at 10 apiece before taking the match, 13-11, to put the Bantams up by two. At No. 4, Ahmed Ismail (Cairo, Egypt) nabbed the first two matches, but Tate Harms rallied back to tie it at 2-2 despite, Ismail fighting in the third for two match points. The sophomore suffered a few tough calls in the fifth for an 11-9 loss and Harvard secured its first point of the match.

First-year Benedek Takacs (Szatymaz, Hungary) started off down a match, but rallied for three-straight to put Trinity up, 3-1, to begin the second wave, followed by a tough 3-2 loss by classmate Joachim Chuah Han Wen (Shah Alam, Malaysia) at No. 3. Chuah takes the first match but Ido Burnstein tied it at one apiece before the rookie came back in the third for the 12-10 victory after knotting it 10 at all. In another close match, Chuah rallied back after being down 8-5 in the fourth to get the score to 10-9, before Burnsten secured the match point to force the tie-breaker game.

To close out the second wave, Danial Izham (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) rallied back for a pair of back-to-back wins to tie it at 2-2, but suffered a narrow 11-9 loss at No. 9 to Ayush Menon. Izham suffered an injury in the fifth match with the scored even at four apiece, however the sophomore battled through the pain to get the score to 10-9 before Harvard earned the match point. The visitors tied it at 3-3 going into the final wave of the Championship Finals. Harvard took its first lead of the night in seventh match, 4-3, to open the final wave as Denis Gilevskiy outlasted Marwan ElBorolossey (6th of October, Egypt) despite the sophomore's two-point rallies in the first and second game to hold off Harvard's match points.

Upperclassmen Mohamed Sharaf (Shiekh Zayed City, Egypt) and Julius Benthin (Norderstedt, Germany) went neck-and-neck in their respective games as the remaining two points came down to the final seconds. In the first game Sharaf was down 6-0 before a three-point rally closed the gap and as the score sat 9-4, the junior repeated the rally to bring it to 10-7, before Marwen Tarek scored the match point. Sharaf took the second to make it 1-1, ignited by a huge 7-0 lead to start the game. Benthin nabbed the first two games against Harvard before Neel Joshi secured an 11-3 win in the third. Benthin fought ferociously in the fourth game for the 11-5 win, but the last two points fell short as Sharaf fell to Tarek in the fourth, 11-5, a few minutes prior.

MATCH RESULTS
Trinity College vs. Harvard University

1. HU - Marwan Tarek d. Mohamed Sharaf, 11-7, 4-11, 11-5, 11-5
2. TC - Abdelrahman Nassar d. George Crowne, 11-7, 11-9, 7-11, 13-11
3. HU - Ido Burstein d. Joachim Chuah Han Wen, 11-8, 4-11, 10-12, 12-10, 11-9
4. HU - Tate Harms d. Ahmed Ismail, 6-11, 7-11, 13-11, 11-9, 11-7
5. HU - Denis Gilevskiy d. Marwan ElBorolossey, 11-8, 11-7, 11-5
6. TC - Benedek Takacs d. David Costales, 0-11, 7-11, 8-11, 6-11
7. TC - Julius Benthin d. Neel Joshi, 11-8, 11-3, 3-11, 11-5
8. TC - Khamal Cumberbatch d. Liam Rotzoll, 11-8, 7-11, 11-4, 8-11, 11-9
9. HU - Ayush Menon d. Danial Izham, 12-10, 11-6, 7-11, 4-11, 11-9

Trinity (Conn.) 4, Harvard 5