For the men's squash team, this past weekend came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. Tufts struggled in its first three matches, losing to MIT, Brown and Dartmouth. But the squad recovered nicely, defeating its arch-rival Connecticut College to cap off a busy weekend.
Against Conn. College in their last match of the regular season, the Jumbos were able to put together an impressive 6-3 win on the fourth leg of a remarkably difficult four-day road trip. The victory can largely be attributed to the play of the middle and lower portion of the lineup, as the third through eight seeds all defeated their opponents in a dramatic match filled with comebacks..
"We played with our heart," senior tri-captain Shayan Haque said "I was really proud."
The most heroics came from sophomore Phil Beatson, the team's number eight player. Beatson won his first game rather convincingly, 9-3, only to lose the next two 5-9 and 4-9.
"[My opponent] was forcing me to make mistakes," Beatson said.
But Beatson was able to rebound to take the fourth game, 9-3, and capped it off with a 9-1 victory in the deciding fifth game. Beatson was quick to credit his comeback to a conversation he had before the third game with Haque, who was watching much of the match.
"He told me exactly what was going on and the specific mistakes I was making," Beatson said. "At that point, it was up to me to correct my mistakes and turn it around. By the fifth game, it's a mental test, and Shayan really motivated me to give it everything I had and not to leave anything on the court."
Number four Nathan Anderson continued the string of comebacks when he won in four games after losing the first 9-0. Fifth seed Jason Krugman and seventh seed Haque also won their matches after losing first games.
In the first match of the weekend, the Jumbos knew they let a match get away as they fell 8-1 against a weaker MIT team last Thursday night at Harvard. "I was very disappointed," Haque said. "It was a low point of the semester."
Coach Doug Eng attributed the loss to a plethora of injuries hampering the effectiveness of his lineup. "Half of the team was ill or hurt," Eng said. "It makes a big difference."
The squad then took on Brown on Friday, before heading to Dartmouth on Saturday. Both these matches ended without a single individual victory for the Jumbos. Even so, the team was satisfied with its play - Dartmouth and Brown are ranked sixth and eighth in the nation, respectively.
"We realized we had to put a couple of good matches together and we were happy with the results," Eng said. "They are much better teams."
Haque also seemed to be in good spirits despite the defeats. "People were fired up," he said.
Tufts now has two weeks to prepare for the team Nationals, which will be held in the friendly confines of Harvard: the site of many of the Jumbos' matches. For Coach Eng, these two weeks are a matter of waiting, recovering and practicing. "We have to see what our seedings are," Eng said. "We have to practice hard and we have to stay injury free."
It's possible that the team will be faced with some familiar foes at Nationals. Although the seedings are still up in the air, the squad might get chances to avenge earlier losses to Wesleyan and Hobart. "We have to learn what we did wrong," Haque said.
"We will practice as hard as we can without going overboard," Beatson said of the upcoming matches. "Nursing injuries while at the same time hoping we will be able to improve."
Before Nationals, the team has a final tune-up Monday at Harvard against Cal-Berkeley. Tutfs will then be in Cambridge over the weekend of the Feb. 22-24 for Nationals.
@s:Team gearing up for nationals
