PHILADELPHIA – Nick Spizzirri advanced to the semifinal round of the Pool Trophy (A Division) at the College Squash Association (CSA) Individual Championships, which are taking place this weekend at the Arlen Specter Squash Center on Drexel's campus.
 
Spizzirri swept through both of his matches on Friday, defeating Princeton's Tom Rosini (11-6, 11-6, 11-3) and Harvard's David Costales (11-8, 11-7, 11-5) to get just two wins away from winning the individual national title. He will play Cornell's Veer Chotrani in a semifinal that is scheduled for 2:40 p.m. on Saturday.
 
Sophomore Omar Hafez and freshman Salman Khalil were also in the 16-player Pool Trophy bracket, both of them winning their first-round matches before falling in the quarterfinal round. Hafez opened the day with a four-game win over Trinity's Aly Eltokhy (11-4, 11-9, 8-11, 12-10) before falling to the Big Red's Chotrani in four (11-13, 11-5, 11-6, 11-5). Khalil, meanwhile, started his day with a four-game win over Princeton's Hollis Robertson (11-8, 11-4, 3-11, 11-8). In his quarterfinal, the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year came back from a 2-0 deficit to force a fifth against Yale's Siow Yee Xian before falling in the deciding game (11-8, 11-3, 8-11, 11-13, 11-4).
 
Yee Xian will play Trinity's Mohamed Sharaf in the Pool Trophy's other semifinal.
 
Penn's fourth player on the weekend is junior Abdelrahman Dweek, who was in the 16-player Molloy South bracket. Dweek opened his day with a sweep of Rochester's Luis Moncada that was closer than it appeared (11-9, 11-7, 11-8), but in the second round he was dropped in three by Drexel's Yuri Pollak Pelbart in a match that had two extremely close games before the Dragon pulled away in Game 3 (11-9, 13-11, 11-3).