Jumbos drop two to foes Wesleyan and Trinity

The men's squash team endured two losses last Wednesday afternoon to conference foes Wesleyan and national number one Trinity.

Those setbacks are not dulling the Jumbos' spirits, however, as they head into the CSA Team Championships at Yale this weekend.

The team had their work cut out for them going into their matches against the Cardinals and the Bantams, knowing it had no shot at defeating Trinity and that Wesleyan would be a tough haul. However, the competition proved too stringent as Tufts fell 8-1 and 9-0 to Wesleyan and Trinity, respectively.

"We were a little disappointed in our match against Wesleyan," coach Doug Eng said. "We were prepared for them, and there were a lot of close matches. But upsets only happen when a lot of things go right for the team, and they just didn't go right for us." Senior co-captain Jesse Goldberg echoed Eng's dissapointment.

"We had real close matches; a lot of four and five gamers that we just didn't quite pull out," he said.

Sophomore Spencer Maxwell was one of those who dropped a hard-fought five game match (5-9, 9-4, 10-8, 8-10, 9-2). Sophomores Tom Keidel, Dan Karlin, and Pranav Tripathi lost relatively close matches at the number two, three, and four spots, respectively. Senior co-captain Jordan Kolasinski dropped a four game match at number five.

Junior Fernando Kriete, playing number six, and Golberg, playing seven, also lost tight matches along with senior Alex Busse's loss in a five game battle at number eight. Freshman Dave Linz picked up the only victory for Tufts at the number nine spot, winning (9-6, 9-1, 10-8).

"I felt I played pretty strong in the Wesleyan match," Linz said. "I just tried to stay consistent. It's easier playing at the bottom because we have such a deep team." "Dave played a solid match," Eng added. "He was clearly better than his opponent and he got the victory. All of the other matches were real dog fights."

The story was quite different against Trinity.

"Trinity is an incredibly tough team," Eng said. "It is the most dominant team in any college sport today. No one is going to beat them."

The Jumbos failed to even win a game against this formidable opponent. Maxwell and Kiedel, despite strong play were handled easily with Kiedel putting up the toughest fight and still falling (9-4, 9-5, 9-5).

"We're very strong at the top of our lineup, but even our top players aren't quite up there with Trinity," Goldberg said.

Tufts hopes to learn from these matches and use them as preparation for the CSA Championships at Yale this weekend. The Jumbos all seem to be in agreement that they can be a force in their bracket.

"We don't know our exact draw yet," Eng said. "But we want to win our division. I'd say we are the favorites, and we are going to have to knock off the usurpers. The team expects nothing less than to win."

Golberg has high hopes for the tournament as well.

"We hope to place first or second," he said. "I know there are high expectations, but we just want to prove ourselves to the rest of the squash association. We're going to focus more on drills this week so we're as prepared as possible."

Kolasinski noted the importance of staying mentally focused.

"We're going to work hard on strategic stuff and fitness stuff this week and just generally keeping our head in the games," he said. "Squash is a real mental sport so we just have to stay calm and get confident."

Next weekend will bring an end to the distinguished squash careers of Kolasinski and Golberg, and they hope to go out in style.

"With it being our last match we're just hoping to do real well and bring home some hardware," Kolasinski said.