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Yes, most of them hurt like hell today. And, yes, most of
them were praying for a transit strike. But despite the inevitable
Monday morning pain, members of the four Metropolitan Area
teams that participated in the USSRA 5-Man Team Championships
had a successful weekend at Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
The three area teams (New Jersey, Harvard Club of New York,
and Team New York) that entered the 16-team A draw took three
of the top six places in the event, with the other three spots
going to the three best college teams in the country. Top-seeded
Princeton, which beat fourth-seeded New Jersey 4-1 in the
semis on Saturday afternoon, took the title with a 4-1 win
over third-seeded Trinity in
Sunday's final. The Harvard Club, seeded second, lost 4-1
to Trinity in the other semifinal, then conceded the third-place
match to New Jersey because of pressing engagements in the
Bronx. Team New York lost to Harvard 5-0 in the fifth-place
match.
The sole local entrant in the B draw, New York, lost 3-2
to Chicago in the finals of that eight-team event.
With seven city and regional-based teams joining the standard
college teams that usually dominate the A draw, this year's
event was more national-oriented than in the past. Highlighting
the diversity were the first round victims of the area teams
on Friday. The Harvard Club (Tim Wyant, Richard Chin, Daniel
Ezra, Peter Karlen, Andrew Merrill) beat a junior team from
the Baltimore area 5-0. New Jersey (Clive Leach, Win Tangitrong,
Vineet Asthana, Vinay Asthana, Michael Scherl) had a similarly
easy time with the Harvard II team. Team New York (John Musto,
Francis Odeh, Alec Decker, Josh Easdon, Rob Endelman) were
4-1 victors over Northern California.
The Harvard Club reached the semis with Saturday morning's
5-0 win over Princeton II, and New Jersey followed suit with
a 5-0 victory over Colorado. Team New York had a tougher task,
and fell 4-1 to Princeton, the top-ranked college team. Decker
accounted for the lone New York point with his victory over
Will Evans, last year's NCAA finalist. Team New York then
beat Colorado 3-2 (with Odeh providing a huge spark with his
win over Amit Sethia, the 5.5 National Champion) to reach
the fifth place playoff, the team's goal when the draw was
released.
In the B draw, New York (Alex Kam, Ray Zananiri, Ramesh Haridas,
Steve Moss, Chetan Vig) beat Trinity III and Hartford II to
advance to the finals. In the first round win over Trinity
III, Moss won the pivotal match 10-9 in the fifth after being
down 8-2.
For more info: http://www.squashtalk.com/us5manteams/index.htm
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