The Dragons would remain at home for their pair of matches against the Princeton squash program. It was the men who first got things underway with their nine against the Tigers’ nine. Unfortunately for Drexel, it was not much of a match, as Princeton took a lopsided 9-0 decision Dec. 3.
The Dragons struggled to win any substantial amount of sets against the mighty Tigers. One highlight for Drexel, though, came from Joey Gingold. The sophomore was matched up with Princeton’s Michael LeBlanc at No. 7, and Gingold was able to take him to five sets before falling 11-4.
While Gingold was able to pick up two wins in five of his sets, the rest of Drexel struggled. The remainder of the lineup, aside from Gingold, combined for just three wins. For the Dragons, only Ibrahim Bakir at No. 1, Justin Singh at No. 2 and Nat Fry at No. 9 were able to get a set win, each in the second set of their respective matchups.
Off the court, the matchup represented a homecoming for Princeton head coach Sean Wilkinson. The former Drexel assistant is in his first season as the man in charge of Princeton’s squash program, and he picked up his second career victory as head coach on the road at his former stomping ground.
Things did not go much better for the Drexel women against the Tigers than it did for the men. They also dropped a 9-0 decision to Princeton Dec. 4 at the Kline & Specter Squash Center. Princeton’s women’s team entered the match ranked No. 4 in the country, behind only Harvard University, Trinity College and the University of Pennsylvania in the Dunlop Women’s Team Rankings.
Drexel’s women struggled against the Tigers, losing nearly each match up and down the ladder. Libby Eyre started off the day with a set victory for Princeton at No. 1, and the domination continued to Libbie Maine winning at the No. 9 position. Overall, they took 30 of the 31 sets as a team.
One Dragon, however, was able to salvage a set victory. At No. 3, Elisa Money was able win the first set against Hallie Dewey 12-10. Money would then fall in the remaining three sets by counts of 11-3, 11-5 and 11-4. No other members of Drexel’s team were able to pick up a set win.
Fortunately for Drexel, they will return to the courts quickly to try to move on from the challenging start to the week. Both the men and women face off against Harvard Dec. 6 at 5 p.m. in Cambridge, Mass. It will mark the Dragons’ first road competition since their Nov. 16 trip to Annapolis, Md., in which the men lost to the U.S. Naval Academy and shut out Georgetown University while the women blanked Johns Hopkins University.
Finally, Drexel will conclude its weekend trip through the Northeast with a match against Brown University, which will be the Drexel squash finale before winter break. Both teams square off Dec. 7 at 10 a.m.