Lovejoy Makes A-Division Semifinals

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Yale's Spencer Lovejoy, Nadav Raziel, Harrison Gill and Calvin McCafferty competed in the first and second rounds of the CSA Singles Championships at Brown University on Friday.

In the A division, Lovejoy swept Trinity's Thoboki Mohohlo (11-6, 11-6, 11-4) before defeating a formidable opponent in Columbia's Velavan Senthilkumar in round two. Lovejoy defeated Senthilkumar, who is the No. 3 seed in the tournament, in five games (11-5, 9-11, 8-11, 11-0, 11-9). Senthilkumar defeated Lovejoy twice previously in the season.

In the B division, Harrison Gill swept Drexel's Noel Heaton (11-8, 11-4, 11-6) before sweeping MIT's Aman Sanger (11-3, 11-2, 11-2) in round two. First-year Nadav Raziel also swept both his round-one and round-two opponents. Raziel defeated Catham's Vinicius Muniz (11-1, 11-0, 11-3) in round one and took down William's Wyatt Khosrowshahi (11-5, 11-6, 11-5) in round two. Calvin McCafferty fell in the first round to to Franklin & Marshall's Aryan Parekh (11-8, 7-11, 11-5, 11-8).

Lovejoy, Gill and Raziel all compete in the semifinals on Saturday. Gill faces Navy's Jonathan Lentz at 12:30 p.m., Raziel faces Rochester's Matthew Toth at 2 p.m and Lovejoy faces Harvard's No. 1 seed Victor Crouin at 2:30 p.m.

Crouin, who has already competed professionally before, was awarded both the Ivy Rookie and Player of the Year this season.

Lovejoy's appearance in the A division semifinals is the first by a Yale athlete in 16 years.

"[Lovejoy's win against Senthilkumar] was the best win by a Yale player in many years," said Brooks G. Ragen Director of Squash Dave Talbott. "Spencer has put in the work and got a great result yesterday after losing to [Senthilkumar] twice this year. He has matured his game to the level of a handful of players from around the world who are the best college squash players."

The semifinals will be streamed live here.

Report by Johnny Gross '21, Yale Sports Publicity