Courtesy: Beverly SchaeferSenior Katie Giovinazzo has one last weekend of team competition, and she has every intention of making it a special one. The Tiger women's squash co-captain recorded a hard-fought 3-2 victory at the No. 3 position to help Princeton to an 8-1 Howe Cup quarterfinal victory over Stanford Friday afternoon at Harvard.
The win sends Princeton into a semifinal showdown with second-ranked Yale, which defeated Cornell 9-0. While both teams had decisive victories Friday, neither had an easy day. Princeton needed to play 34 individual games, while Yale played 35 games.
Princeton will take on Yale Saturday afternoon at 1:30 in one of two semifinals played simultaneously. Top-seeded Harvard will take on Trinity in the other semifinal, held at Harvard's Murr Center.
The third-seeded Tigers dropped a 7-2 decision to Yale earlier this season, though the match was a tight one. The Bulldogs won three matches by 3-2 scores and three others by 3-1 scores.
Princeton got out of the first shift with a 3-0 lead Friday, but it took serious work to get there. Sophomore Caroline Feeley moved into the No. 9 spot and scored a 3-1 victory, and freshman Hallie Dewey fought off Madeleine Gill with a 12-10 win in the fourth game to clinch her match at the No. 6 spot.
That left Giovinazzo, who held leads of 1-0 and 2-1, but still needed to play a fifth game. The Tiger veteran, who won a key match in Princeton's 2009 national championship win over Harvard, battled for an 11-6 win to give Princeton the sweep.
Princeton got 3-0 wins from both junior Casey Cortes (No. 8) and sophomore Alex Sawin (No. 5) to clinch the semifinal berth. Freshman Nicole Bunyan had a memorable debut in the Howe Cup; playing at the No. 2 spot, she overcame a first-game loss and played deep into the fifth. Her 11-9 victory over Kerrie Sample gave Princeton its sixth win.
Freshman Alex Lunt scored a 3-0 win at No. 7, and sophomore Alex Sawin recorded an 11-9 win in the fourth at the No. 4 spot for Princeton's eighth win. Stanford picked up its lone win at No. 1, as Pamela Chua won three close games over junior Julie Cerullo.
PRINCETON 8, STANFORD 1
1 - Pamela Chua (S) d. Julie Cerullo 11,9,6
2 - Nicole Bunyan (P) d. Kerrie Sample (7),9,6,(9),9
3 - Katie Giovinazzo (P) d. Kyla Sherwood 7,(5),7,(6),6
4 - Lexi Saunders (P) d. Kathryn Corelli 9,(5),5,9
5 - Alex Sawin (P) d. Aditi Maliwal 7,9,6
6 - Hallie Dewey (P) d. Madeleine Gill 7,7,(10),10
7 - Alex Lunt (P) d. Serena Fagan 7,9,5
8 - Casey Cortes (P) d. Julie Koenig 6,3,2
9 - Caroline Feeley (P) d. Alexandra Huchro 7,4,(6),6
