Squash looks toward year of adjustments

The women's squash team looks to open the season strong at this weekend's Dartmouth Tournament. The competition will include four matches against Dartmouth, Bates, Bowdoin and Franklin and Marshall.

A scrimmage this past weekend, though, has left the team with mixed results. In their first court time of the season, they lost to Stanford, St. Lawrence and Vassar but defeated Smith College.

"[The meet] was good for the bottom, inexperienced players," coach Doug Eng said.

"[Senior co-captain] Winnie [So] was sick last weekend. She had to keep taking a lot of breaks, but she still won. We had a lot of good matches. It was a learning experience," senior Abi Cushman said.

This performance may not necessarily reflect the team's later development, however.

"I don't know how we stack up," Eng said. "There are so many new players, and we're feeling it out. We're learning how things are going to go and what players can do. We have four inexperienced players but they have good attitudes."

This year's team returns five seniors, including the two captains So and Cushman. Unfortunately for the team, senior Eileen Connors will not play for family reasons. So and Cushman will be a lock for the top two spots, while the rest of the lineup has yet to be determined.

"We're solid at the top two spots," Eng said. "It's hard to know the lineup after that."

The team has a lot of new players, all with varying experience, including two new freshmen recruits Joelle Polivy and Zoe Bolesta. Approximately half of the team has had prep school experience, although Cushman began her squash career at Tufts.

"It's a good group of girls. The team is going to bond a lot. It's a young team. A lot of the new people are going to contribute," Cushman said.



With so many changes in the members of the team, the year is "not for rebuilding but for adjustments" Eng said.

At the National Tournament each year, the teams are divided into groups of eight, so the first eight compete together, then nine through 16 and so on. Last year's team finished the season ranked 19th in the nation after its performance at the former Howe Cup, now renamed the Walker Cup. The Jumbos lost to Vassar 5-4 to place 19th in their grouping. This year the team hopes to improve on that spot.

"We hope to win the third division [teams ranked 17-24]. Tufts has only won the division once in 22 years," Eng said.

Last year, the team came close to winning the third division and this year the prospects to come out on top are just as good.

"Sophomore year we were in Division 2 [teams ranked 9-16]. We're always somewhere in that area," Cushman said. "Last year Conn College came in right before us, but we think we can beat them."