Virginia Squash Announces Three Graduate Students
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia squash head coach Mark Allen announced today (June 27) the addition of Karim Elbarbary (Cairo, Egypt), a graduate transfer from Princeton, to the men’s team for the 2023-24 season. Additionally, he announced that Meagan Best (Christ Church, Barbados) and Maria Moya (Ambato, Ecuador) will be returning to the women’s team for the upcoming season.
“We are poised to make the most of the final seasons with these postgrads,” Allen said. “Our women’s team will benefit enormously from the skill and experience that Meagan Best and Maria Moya are going to bring back to the program. As our first graduate transfer, Karim will be opening a new recruiting pathway for our program. And he is truly the ideal figure to do so—as a person, a student, and an athlete. We cannot wait to bring him here to UVA and work with him to make his final year in the CSA a triumph.”
Elbarbary graduated from Princeton in June with a degree in computer science and will utilize his final year of eligibility while pursuing a master’s degree at Virginia. He played three seasons at Princeton, earning first-team All-America honors in 2023 and 2024 after being named to the second team in 2022. He played at No. 1 for the Tigers last season, making the Pool Trophy quarterfinals at the CSA Individual Championships, after posting winning records at the No. 2 positions his first two seasons. He was the top-ranked junior player in Egypt in both U19 and U17 and was ranked No. 204 in the PSA World Rankings before embarking on his collegiate career.
Best, who earned her B.A. in psychology from UVA in May, will utilize her COVID year to return as a graduate student. Best is a three-time first-team All-American and was a finalist for the 2024 Betty Richey Award, the CSA’s top honor for a female student-athlete. The two-time MASC Women’s Player of the Year has a 41-7 career record and was the top-seeded player at this year’s CSA Individual Championships.
Moya was granted a medical hardship waiver to be able to return for her sixth year at Virginia after missing almost all of last season recovering from an injury. She is pursuing a master’s degree in commerce at UVA’s McIntire School. She is a two-time first-team All-MASC honoree, playing primarily at the No. 2 position on the ladder. She has logged 32 victories in her time on the courts with the Cavaliers.
“I don’t think I can overstate how much of a difference it will make to have these two top-three players returning to the women’s team for one more run,” Allen said. “Meagan is by far UVA’s most decorated women’s squash player and she has been an absolute ace for us at the top of our order these past three seasons. Maria was playing the best squash of her career before going out with a knee injury and she might easily have earned a spot in the 16-player individual national championship draw. But it has been incredible to how determined and dedicated she is to making one more push for the program. The effort she has put in to get back to full strength and mobility has been absolutely phenomenal and I know she is aiming to reclaim her place in the top third of our order.”