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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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In the early evening of February 22, Yale women's squash squared off against Harvard with the Ivy title at stake. The heavily favored Elis had the home court and a large home crowd, they had a number-one ranking and an undefeated streak more than two years old, and with the contest knotted at four-all, they had ace Michelle Quibell '06 in the deciding ninth match. But Quibell had been battling the flu and a nagging leg injury. With her team looking on, the senior traded shots with Crimson freshman Lily Lorentzen until their match stood at two games apiece. In the fifth and final game, in her final appearance on Court One of the Brady Squash Center, Quibell fell 9-7. The jubilant Crimson stormed the court, forcing a stunned Quibell to edge past the celebration that everyone thought would belong to Yale. Captain Amy Gross '06 described the scene in the training room after the team's first loss in two years: "A few of the girls were crying. Half of us were in shock. I was sitting there so surprised." After a few moments, head coach Dave Talbott entered the room. He knew his team needed to get over the loss in short order: in less than 48 hours, the Elis would board a bus outside Payne Whitney bound for Cambridge, where the Howe Cup would begin on Friday and where they were almost certain to meet Harvard in the semifinals on Saturday. (The Howe Cup is the third and final title in collegiate squash after the Ivy title and the National Championship.) Eli phenom Miranda Ranieri '08 recounted Talbott's pep talk: "Dave came in and basically said, 'How often do you lose to a team and then get a chance to play them again in one week and try to redeem yourselves?'" Yale crushed Brown and the next day met Harvard -- for a brilliant turnaround. During the Ivy title matches two days earlier, says Talbott, the Bulldogs might not have played as hard as they could have: "I think the girls, as the matches started developing, were all assuming that everything was going to be fine and everybody else is going to win -- but a couple of them forgot to take care of their own match." But in the Howe, overconfidence was no longer a problem. The Elis quickly won the first five matches over Harvard and took the round easily, 6-3. On Sunday Yale faced its rival, Trinity, in the finals. The Trinity Bantams had dominated all of collegiate squash up until two years ago, when they were dethroned by Yale, and Trinity is still a powerhouse. The Bantams took an early 4-3 lead. The match, the Howe Cup, and redemption came down to Quibell and Gross. In their final appearance as Elis, as a finale to their hugely successful four years of squash at Yale, the senior veterans delivered with a pair of 3-1 victories. "Amy and I had a little talk before we both went on," says Quibell. "We were like, 'This is it. This is us. We can do this for the team, we can do this for each other.' And we did. It was a perfect ending." |
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