After a tough 9-0 loss to Dartmouth Nov. 30, the Tufts women's squash team fell in two more consecutive matches Dec. 3 at the Wesleyan Round Robin Tournament.
In the first match, the 12th-ranked Saint Lawrence Saints soundly defeated the No. 16 Jumbos 9-0 before the team lost once more later in the round-robin to the No. 19 Stanford Cardinal, 8-1. The Jumbos' record now stands at 2-4 going into today's match against Amherst, which will be played at the Belmont Hill School at 6:30 p.m.
At the No. 1 slot, sophomore Rebecca Rice lost to Saint junior Katia Stipinovich 9-2, 9-5, 9-1, while No. 2 player and freshman Victoria Barba picked up a game, but still was beaten by Saint junior Ashley Eldredge 9-5, 9-2, 1-9, 9-4. Freshman Molly Frizzell, playing at No. 8, won a close third game against her opponent, sophomore Anne Perry Daniels, but ultimately lost 9-2, 9-5, 9-10, 9-3.
Overall, Saint Lawrence won 27 games in their sweep of the Jumbos, while Tufts tallied only two. Rice said that some players had to play up the ladder to fill in for higher-ranked absent players, which challenged the team even more against an already-difficult opponent.
"Saint Lawrence is a really strong team," Rice said.
Stanford only added women's squash as an "emerging varsity sport" starting for the 2005-06 season, yet still managed to defeat the Jumbos. Senior co-captain Joelle Polivy, one of several key players absent from the weekend's round-robin, said that team should have prevailed over the Cardinal, attributed the losses to the relatively weak starting lineup.
Junior Julia Avrutin, who filled the one seed last year, junior Erica Adler, who played two, and classmate Jen Lange, who played at six, eight, and nine, are all abroad this semester.
"We were missing a lot of people," Polivy said. "We would have been a lot better with our players who are currently abroad."
"We were down a few players which hurt us a lot," Rice said. "We had two injured and one out of town. Also, it had been a really long day. We had to play Stanford at 9 p.m."
In the Stanford match, Rice managed to pick up a set against her number one sophomore opponent Brooksie Riley, but lost 9-4, 6-8, 9-3, 9-7. Barba secured the Jumbos' only victory of the entire round robin playing at number two, defeating senior Ashleigh Pattee 9-2, 4-9, 9-3, 10-9.
Freshman Jessica Herrmann fought hard at the number four slot, battling to five sets against Stanford sophomore Rachel Deming but ended up with a tough 9-4, 5-9, 8-10, 9-7, 9-6 loss.
The Jumbos go into today's match against the 11th-ranked Lord Jeffs hoping to end their three-game losing skid, but a victory over Amherst might prove difficult, Polivy said.
"In the past, they have been a tough team," she said. "It will be tough but it should be a good way to end the first half of the season."
Rice said that the team will have some of its non-abroad members who were absent from the Wesleyan Round Robin back and that their addition will help the Jumbos greatly.
"Amherst has a really deep lineup," Rice said. "It'll be a really close match though, and they're not as strong a team as last year. We're going to go out fighting."
Polivy said that although the Jumbos have suffered some early season losses, the matches played during the second semester are more important because they determine the rankings for the Howe Cup tournament, which will be played at Harvard in late February.
"We really have a solid team," Polivy said. "We have a lot of really good freshman and great returning players, and the abroad players [who are returning next semester] will really help our team."
