PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Navy team captain Michael Kacergis (Sr, Malvern, Pa.) and Jack Lentz (Jr, Philadelphia, Pa.) joined forces to rally from a 2-0 deficit and win the 2019 Intercollegiate Squash Doubles National Championship Sunday morning in Philadelphia. The Navy teammates defeated the team of Sanjay Jeeva and Shamseldeen Abbas from Franklin & Marshall in a five-game thriller.

The Philadelphia Cricket Club played host to the 13-team tournament which was represented by six universities (Brown, Columbia, Drexel, Fordham, Franklin & Marshall and Navy) vying for the annual title which has been dominated by Navy in recent years.

Navy has sent at least one team to compete in each of the last nine Intercollegiate Squash Doubles Championships and a Navy team has played in the finals of each of the last eight doubles national championships. Navy has now won five consecutive Intercollegiate Doubles National Championships (2015 - Bill Kacergis & Senen Ubina, 2016 - Randy Beck & Jack Herold, 2017 Jack Herold and Senen Ubina, 2018 Michael Kacergis & Senen Ubina, 2019 Jack Lentz & Michael Kacergis) and six of the last seven (2013 - Andrew McGuinness & Hunter Beck).  

This year's championship was set up when Kacergis and Lentz earned an opening-round bye before the pair went on to sweep Columbia's Aditya Kankariya and Vishan Patel (15-6, 15-2, 15-7) and Franklin & Marshall's Matthew Kukarm and Boden Polikoff (15-10, 15-4, 15-12).

Meanwhile, F&M's Jeeva and Abbas also had an opening-round bye before defeating Brown's Nicholas Pitaro and Harrison Boyer in four games (15-13, 9-15, 15-13, 15-11) and Columbia's Sehrawat and Kapur in four (13-15, 15-14, 15-8, 15-9) to punt their ticket into the championship.

Jeeva and Abbas opened up a 2-0 advantage in what looked as though it would be a rout. However, Kacergis and Lentz rallied to win game three, 15-11, and then leveled the match with a 15-9 game-four victory. The Navy pair utilized the momentum and rolled it into the fifth game where it posted a 15-10 victory to win the 40th annual Intercollegiate Squash Doubles National Championship.

The win marked the second straight doubles title for Kacergis, while Lentz became a first-time champion.

Navy also fielded two other teams. Millen Randell (Fr / Chicago, Ill.) and Ryan York (So / Hunt Valley, Md.) scored a 3-0 win (15-8, 15-11, 15-14) over F&M's Aryan Parekh and Teddy Eill before falling in four games (15-13, 8-15, 15-8, 15-13) to Sehrawat and Kapur. Meanwhile, Owen Davis (Sr / Rydal, Pa.) and Gus Prager (So / New York, N.Y.) combined to defeat F&M's Advani and Hinostroza in the opener (15-2, 15-10, 15-2) before dropping a heart-breaker in five games (13-15, 15-9, 15-11, 14-15, 15-13) to Dukarm and Polikoff.

### Go Navy ###