Women's squash
at Wellesley, Wednesday
Tufts 7
Wellesley 2
The women's squash team continued its strong start to the season with a 7-2 victory in a match played on the road against Wellesley College on Wednesday.
"We played very well," coach Doug Eng said. "We expected to win pretty easily, and we're playing at a high level right now."
Sophomore Jules Avrutin led the way for the Jumbos, posting a victory at the top spot over Wellesley's Tomoko Takahashi. The match was tight, but Avrutin managed to overcome a loss in the first game to pull out the victory by the score of 9-10, 9-1, 9-6, 9-6.
"Jules got off to a slow start in that first game," Eng said. "Sometimes the first game involves feeling out your opponent. Once she did, she knew she needed to be more aggressive and she was."
Sophomore Erica Adler had an easier time of it at the number two spot, defeating Wenjun Jing 9-1, 9-5, 9-1.
Freshman Rebecca Rice also rolled to an easy victory at number three (9-1, 9-2, 9-0). Senior co-captain Nicole Arens also won with ease, posting a 9-0, 9-2, 9-2 victory at number four.
"I thought we played very well," Arens said. "We did a very good job of keeping focused on each point and not getting ahead of ourselves."
Senior Nida Ghouse came through as well with a 9-7, 9-2, 9-1 victory at number five. Senior co-captain Eliza Drachman-Jones was strong at the number six spot, as she defeated Ann Hsu 9-6, 9-3, 9-2. Sophomore Liz Thys also won easily as well at the number seven position, chalking up a 9-0, 9-3, 9-1 win.
Freshman Micela Leis was winning at number eight 9-4, 9-2, 6-3 until she was forced to default after seriously injuring her wrist. Eng is unsure of how long Micela will be out. Tufts also defaulted the number nine spot because it was shorthanded due to injuries.
"We've had a real rash of injuries recently," Arens said. "Micela just hurt her wrist and we've had some people injuring themselves in practice."
The women have a big weekend coming up, as they will face national powerhouse Trinity today, and then Middlebury and Hamilton tomorrow.
"Trinity is tough," Eng said. "We've just got to go out there and play fundamental squash against them, because they won't let you do anything else."
"Trinity is the best team in the nation by far," Adler said. "But the big match for us is Middlebury. They are one spot below us and we need to beat them."
The Jumbos' match against Hamilton is where they will have the biggest advantage.
"We will need to play a sound match against Hamilton," Eng said. "They're ranked 26th but we've got to keep our heads up in that match regardless of what happens in the earlier match against Middlebury."
The Jumbos are hoping to get over the injury hump and field a full team for the matches this weekend.
"It's definitely a big weekend for us," Eng added. "I'm sure the players will be pumped up. Next semester we will be able to deal with injuries because we will have players coming back from abroad, but right now we don't have that luxury."
"We're like the Indiana Pacers right now," Eng added, referring to the shorthanded NBA team that has lost a number of its players due to injuries and suspensions resulting from a massive brawl.
But just as the Pacers have been able to pull off some surprising victories recently, perhaps the Jumbos can do so as well.
