PHILADELPHIA – The University of Rochester squash team picked up its second straight 7-2 victory, this time defeating 11th-ranked Western University of Ontario to move on to the finals of the Hoehn Cup bracket at the College Squash Association National Championships on Saturday afternoon at the Penn Squash Center.
 
Rochester (8-7), ranked #10 in the CSA, took the top seven spots in the ladder to move on to the Hoehn Cup final for the second time in program history, with the other time coming in the 2007-08 season, which was Rochester's last appearance in the B Division at nationals. The Yellowjackets will take on 9th-ranked Cornell University in Sunday's championship match, pitting the top two seeds of the bracket against one another.
 
The loss drops Western to 6-4 on the season and into the Hoehn Cup 3-4 playoff against Dartmouth.
 
Rochester picked up three key five-set victories on Saturday, propelling the Yellowjackets to victory. Abdelrahman Lasheen, Luis Moncada and Jake Koeppel each went the distance in their matches and won.
 

First-year Yash Fadte got UR off to a quick start at the #2 position, winning 3-0 over Dylan Deverill (11-4, 11-7, 12-10).
 
After Western earned a 3-0 win at #8 from Ben Boulanger over Alejandro Porras, UR's Koeppel battled Amin Khan at #6 in the first five-setter of the day. Koeppel took the opening game 11-8. After Khan won the second 11-4, Koeppel regained the lead with a 12-10 win in the third. Khan again rallied for an 11-8 win in the fourth, setting up the tiebreaker which went to the Rochester first-year 11-5. After the opening wave, UR was up 2-1 on the scoreboard.
 
While Koeppel's match was finishing up, Cesar Segundo was making quick work of his opponent at the top of the ladder, winning 11-5, 11-4 and 11-3 to move Rochester up 3-1.
 
The next two matches on court were Moncada and Lasheen at #4 and #3 respectively. Neither match started out well for the Rochester players, as each fell behind two sets to none. Moncada trailed Akasham Rajagopaul 11-5 and 11-8, while Lasheen dropped two to Taylor Carrick by 11-7 and 11-8 scores.
 
The tide turned in a big way over the final three games in those matches though, with both UR players rallying for three straight wins to secure the fourth and fifth team points of the match. Moncada quickly evened up his match at #4 with back-to-back 11-1 wins, while Lasheen won 11-3 and 11-7 to pull even at #3.
 
In the tiebreaking fifth games, Moncada defeated Rajagopaul 11-6 and Lasheen won over Carrick 11-9, securing the match victory for Rochester.
 
Unfortunately for Rochester's Quinlan Jeudy at #9, he experienced the opposite fate of his teammates, jumping out to a 2-0 lead before seeing his opponent Jason Herring surge back with three straight wins to steal a point. Herring earned the win 10-12, 3-11, 11-7, 11-8 and 11-9.
 
In the final two matches on court, Emilio Carrillo swept Doug Kosciukiewicz in three games (11-7, 11-8 and 11-5) at number seven while Omar Zakaria won in four against Antonio Mendes at the number five slot (11-13, 14-12, 11-7, 11-5).
 
In tomorrow's final, UR takes on Cornell in a rematch of the tight 5-4 contest from earlier this season on February 2nd at the Lyman Squash Center. In that one, the Big Red won, with the match coming down to the final point at #5.