The squash team was busy over break, traveling to the Bahamas to refine its game and tune up for the coming months. Team members did fitness training as well as played practice matches against local players ranging from 25 to 50 years old.
"The kids trained hard," Coach Doug Eng said. "I think they had a real good time."
Senior co-captain Fernando Kriete felt the team got a lot out of the trip.
"It was a great trip and I think it really helped to build some team chemistry," Kriete said. "I tried to help institute a work-hard, play-hard philosophy on the trip. We had a lot of fun off the court, but we also worked extremely hard."
Freshman Jake Gross, who plays No. 1 for the Jumbos and has compiled a record of 7-2, agrees that the trip will definitely help the team this year.
"We practiced once a day and we had three matches. The competition was really good, and it was real hot there so we got some solid physical conditioning," he said.
In the last match before winter break, the men fell to Amherst 1-8 on the Lord Jeffs' home court on Dec. 10.
About halfway into the season, Eng is content with the results thus far, but he sees room for improvement.
"There are a couple guys who need to step up a bit, but now we're going to be at full strength," Eng said. "I think we can do better, but we're not far off the mark."
Kriete feels the team has performed well, but can take its game to a new level in the final part of the season.
"We played to our potential in the first part of the season," Kreite said. "We had a few chances where things could have gone either way and they didn't go our way, but we need to use that as motivation and to make sure next time when we are in that situation things go our way."
"Overall we have improved a lot," Gross said. "We had some bad losses to teams like Hamilton but on the whole I think we've done well."
The Jumbos are currently ranked No. 21 in the nation and they will be helped by the return of junior co-captain Spencer Maxwell. Maxwell played at the No. 1 spot last year for the Jumbos and this year he is projected to play at or around the No. 2 spot.
"Spencer did play some in Spain, but he might be a bit rusty," Eng said. "We'll need to take a look and see where he's at."
With the addition of Maxwell, Kriete is optimistic about the future.
"With our new, improved team chemistry and the fact that we're in better physical shape now, combined with Spencer coming back, I think we're set for a great close to the season," Kriete said.
The men hope to start off the new semester with a victory over Fordham on Jan. 29 in a rare home match. In an effort to continue to retool, the team plans on using the match against a weaker Fordham team as an opportunity to keep working out the kinks. Gross will be sitting out the match.
"I think if we stick to our game plan we should do well," Kriete said of the upcoming match. "We almost never have home matches so we really need people to go and check out the team."
