The Streak Goes On: For six hours, Princeton’s men looked to be the new No. 1 team. But one miraculous turnaround changed everything.

Down 5-0 in the decisive fifth game at No. 1, Trinity’s Basset Chaudhry (in yellow) regained control of the match, and Trinity’s 201-match winning streak, and rattled off nine straight points to seal the victory for Trinity. But were it not for Gustav Detter (photo, far right) turning around his match at No. 2 with Princeton’s Kimlee Wong, the outcome may have been decided before Chaudhry ever took the court.
Down 5-0 in the decisive fifth game at No. 1, Trinity’s Basset Chaudhry (in yellow) regained control of the match, and Trinity’s 201-match winning streak, and rattled off nine straight points to seal the victory for Trinity. But were it not for Gustav Detter (photo, below) turning around his match at No. 2 with Princeton’s Kimlee Wong, the outcome may have been decided before Chaudhry ever took the court.

By Jay D. Prince
Photos by Richard Druckman

Over four-thousand days. The streak. Trinity dominating men’s intercollegiate squash. That’s how long it’s been since they last lost. Sure, there have been a handful of 5-4 wins, most notably against Princeton three years ago when the Tigers had the match on the strings of their indomitable Yasser El Halaby.

Eleven straight National Championships. While the squash world is well aware of Trinity’s run of success, the rest of the sports world learns about it in updates on ESPN and CNN, and sometimes in Sports Illustrated. While ESPN has featured the Bantams on SportsCenter, in February they ran a feature on their “Outside The Lines” segment. Now that’s big in the world of squash. It’s a place usually reserved for football, baseball and basketball. That segment ran on the morning of this year’s Team Championship final when Trinity would be looking for that 11th title against Princeton—on their home courts.

YOU HAVE TO MAKE HIM MOVE FOR THE BALLOver 1,800 matches won. That’s an estimate, of course, but to win their 202 consecutive dual matches, Trinity has won the vast majority of them 9-0. Could be overstated, but you get the point.

How about considering the 49,000-plus points they’ve won in those 1,800 matches? Probably understated. This was just assuming they had won nine points for every game they ran away with. To put it in better perspective, if we were to assume that in each game Trinity won, they lost four points or less, they would have surrendered under 22,000 points; and that number is likely to be less than 10,000, considering the number of times Trinity’s players bageled their counterparts.

Scary stuff. But phenomenally impressive. Perhaps even more incredible, however, is the humble attitude presented by the team that has been so unbeatable. Since 1998, every college team has been aiming to take Trinity down. And every team has come up short. Harvard has taken them to 5-4 (in 2004 and 2007). Princeton has done the same a few times (2006 and 2009). But of the near misses for Princeton, none have been as gut-wrenching as the two this season. The match in 2006 on Trinity’s home courts was heartbreaking, but in February of this year, Princeton had Trinity on the brink in back-to-back cut-throat weekends in the friendly confines of Jadwin Gymnasium.

When you go to that place where fear no longer owns you, you have no more fear. And that’s what happened. The streak was over. We were dead in the water. So we just told our guys to keep them [Princeton] out there as long as they could and make them earn it. And it just freed our guys up to play. We were just able to hold them off like punch drunk fighters.

            —Trinity Coach, Paul Assaiante

In the final dual match of the season for both teams, the Tigers’ opportunity to skewer the streak fell just short when Trinity’s Andres Vargas escaped with a win at No. 7 (after trailing 2-1 to Kelly Shannon) to get the Bantams to the insurmountable five team wins, despite the fact that the No. 1’s were still on court. Trinity’s Baset Chaudhry, who had never lost to Princeton’s Mauricio Sanchez, knew Trinity had won; but Sanchez didn’t care. He wanted the win…and got it. Message sent. The two teams would be likely opponents in the finals of the Team Championships, back at Princeton, in a week.

Just hours after the feature on ESPN, Trinity and Princeton battled it out for six hours to determine whether the streak would carry into a 12th year. Over those six tension-filled hours, Princeton was in the driver’s seat throughout. From the start, Princeton racked up wins to keep Trinity from gaining any momentum. Squash is an individual sport, but not in the college game. The spark from one court can carry over to the next.

As champions do, Trinity battled. From trailing early in just about every match, Trinity drew even to knot the final day at four matches each. Princeton put relentless pressure on the 10-time champions hoping to seal the deal before the No. 1’s would take the court. After four matches, Princeton’s Kimlee Wong led his nemesis, Gustav Detter, 2-0 before falling in five. At three matches each, Princeton was down 2-0 at No. 7, but up 2-0 and 7-5 in the third at No. 4—until Kelly Shannon recovered in the No. 7 match to put Princeton up 4-3, only to have Trinity’s Parth Sharma survive at No. 4 from being only two points away from losing the match—and the streak. He pulled it out and won in five.

TRINITY COLLEGE MENS SQUASH TEAM WINS 11TH CONSECUTIVE NATIONAL

With the championship deadlocked at four matches each, Chaudhry and Sanchez had already begun their capacity-crowd thriller. Chaudhry took a commanding 2-1 lead, leaving the 11th title just a game away. But whether it was nerves or pressure by Sanchez, Chaudhry found the tin and fell in the fourth, 9-2.

Now at 2-2 going into the fifth, Sanchez and the Princeton faithful could feel it. Sanchez quickly got in the driver’s seat in the deciding game. In his last match for Princeton, the senior took the confidence he had gained from his win over Chaudhry a week earlier and raced out to a 5-love lead. It was over. No chance Trinity walks out with a win with their top player going down fast. Text messages were flying across the country.

But it’s a funny game. Stop tinning and the pressure builds for one’s opponent. Stay out of the tin, and suddenly a game is harder to win. Which is precisely what Chaudhry did. Sanchez would have to win the last four points with no help from Chaudhry. Turns out he needed the help. From the jaws of defeat, Chaudhry ripped through and put Trinity’s streak on his back with a stunning 9-5 win.

ESPN compared the streak to those of Edwin Moses (107 consecutive wins in100M hurdles finals) and UCLA men’s basketball (88 games). But those records pale in comparison to what Trinity has accomplished. Perhaps the sport of squash deserves more credit for such an astonishing feat. As far as I know, the only streak longer than Trinity’s was another squash streak. Remember Jahangir Khan and his 555 consecutive matches? Nineteen more years and Trinity will eclipse that one too.