After matches against some of their toughest competitors last weekend, where the men finished 2-2 and the women 0-4, the men's and women's squash teams got back on the right track this weekend, emerging triumphant at the Northeastern and Wesleyan Round Robins.
The men's team, nationally ranked at No. 15 by College Squash Association, bettered their record to 3-2 as it was easily victorious over MIT, 9-0, Middlebury, 8-1, and Northeastern, 9-0.
The No. 23-ranked women also pounded Northeastern in a 9-0 win, beat Smith 9-0, and came up with a critical 5-4 win over No. 18 William Smith, Tufts' first win over the Herons in four years.
"William Smith was more of a gauge of our abilities," coach Doug Eng said. "Both William Smith and Amherst are ranked higher than us. So if we can knock off one, we can knock off another."
"We kind of considered Northeastern and Smith to be warm up matches where we could focus mostly on our own game," senior co-captain Liz Thys added. "We prepared on not waiting because we knew [William Smith's] players were going to be a lot better, and focused on getting back to the 'T' and hard hits."
Several Jumbo women cruised to victory in the match against William Smith. Second-seeded senior co-captain Julia Avruitin, No. 3 sophomore Victoria Barbra, No. 4 freshman Stefanie Marx, and No. 9 sophomore Simone Grant all churned out impressive 3-0 wins in their individual matches.
The team's deciding fifth win came from its eight seed, freshman Katie Stork, who began the match a strong 2-0 before dropping two games due to some adverse calls before finally battling at the end to take the match, 10-8, 9-5, 3-9, 4-9, 9-6. Junior Rebecca Rice, the team's top seed, took her opponent to five games with two wins in a row, as she demonstrated good length but was unable to hit some tin shots.
An expected 9-0 victory at Northeastern on Friday night increased confidence going into the weekend. Every Tufts player recorded a 3-0 win, with the average Jumbo allowing a mere 1.78 points. Thys and Barba both closed out perfect wins: 9-0, 9-0, 9-0. As for the rest of the team, all put up at least one scoreless game in their matches.
Their exceptional performance on Friday night carried over into Saturday morning's 9-0 victory over Smith at the Wesleyan Round Robin. Smith proved to be a slightly more competitive team, as Rice put up a 9-3, 9-5, 9-1 victory over Smith's Beatrice Bircher.
The Jumbos showed depth across the line as junior Micela Leis at the No. 7 slot had a perfect 9-0, 9-0, 9-0 match, and Jess Hermann and Katie Stork at slots 6 and 8, respectively, were not far behind with stellar 9-1, 9-0, 9-0 performances.
The men's team breezed through the weekend, as it faced lower-ranked teams MIT, Middlebury and Northeastern at the Northeastern Round Robin, where it focused on winning and game improvement.
"We were given orders to work on specific parts of our games, and they suggested improvement," sophomore Chris Delaney said. "But the team came in with a lot of confidence so we expected to dominate all three matches."
Dominate was exactly what the Jumbos did. In their first match on Friday night, they cruised past the MIT Engineers, 9-0. All nine players won 3-0, the average points-against total was 2.4, and they came up with 14 blanks across the board.
Freshman Scott Leighton recorded the team's only 9-0, 9-0, 9-0 perfect score, making a case for his moving into the team's No. 4 seed, while senior co-captain Dan Karlin volunteered to sit out.
Middlebury gave the Jumbos a run for their money in the opening matches of Saturday morning, as the morning's first two matches were the only five-game matches.
Freshman Max Dalury came out strong in his first two games against the Panthers' sixth seed, but a hamstring injury slowed his game down as he dropped the next two games. Eventually, Dalury still came away with the win, finishing off a 9-1, 9-2, 5-9, 2-9, 9-6 victory.
In Tufts' 8-1 win over Middlebury, the only loss came from the nine seed, sophomore Chris Martin, although it was a battle as he took his opponent into five games, dropping the match 10-9, 6-9, 9-3, 5-9, 9-5.
The top of the ladder proved their strength as one-seed Delaney, No. 2 freshman John Subranni, and No. 3 junior Kris Leetavorn took their games successfully in three-game matches. Long rallies brought No. 4 Karlin and No. 5 Leighton into four game wins.
Saturday afternoon's match versus Northeastern was just as successful, as the Jumbos trounced the Huskies, 8-1. Six of their nine match-ups were won in three-games, while four-game battles were fought at the No. 4 and No. 9 slots by Karlin and sophomore Brian Rassel.
The only loss came from Delaney at the top spot, as he came out strong in the first game, but lost the next three to his opponent, No. 71 in the nation Kharrum Khan, 6-9, 9-1, 9-0, 9-2.
"Team-wise, we are doing well, we will be practicing fairly hard Monday and Tuesday to prepare for a big match that we believe we can win as a team," Delaney said. "My own game fell apart epically Saturday afternoon, so I have a lot to do over the next few days. I have to rebuild my confidence and rhythm."
While the men's and women's squash teams may still be on a high from this past weekend, they will be preparing for one of their biggest rivals, the Amherst Lord Jeffs, the nation's No. 10 men's team and women's No. 19, who both topped the Jumbos last season.
"To do well against Amherst we have to be sharp," Eng said of the men's team. "We can't get sloppy. We will look at things that we know we can do well, focus on our fundamentals and our steady driving game. If we focus on this, we will do well."
"We had big wins this weekend, but we still need to work a lot on getting our short game down," Thys said of the women. "We need more finishers. We can work on shorts and kills because we haven't been too good at finishing."
