The men's squash team made a splash in its first match of the inaugural NESCAC Tournament at Trinity, cruising to a 9-0 win over Wesleyan on Friday evening. That optimism faded quickly, however, as Bates, the No. 3 seed in the tournament, thrashed the No. 6 Jumbos 8-1 in Saturday's quarterfinal round, setting up a 5-4 consolation round victory over Hamilton on Saturday and a 5-4 loss to Bowdoin on Sunday.
In one of their poorest showings of the year, the Jumbos emerged from their second-round clash against the Bobcats with just one win. Freshman Scott Leighton, playing in the No.7 spot, defeated his opponent, sophomore Mark Taggart, in three-straight games. Leighton, who is now 4-3 since the break, defeated Taggart 9-3, 9-7, 9-6.
The other Jumbos did not fare as well, however. Junior co-captain Jake Gross, playing in the No.1 spot, lost to Bobcat junior and tri-captain Ricky Weisskopf, who came into the event ranked 15th in the nation by the College Squash Association. Gross lost the first two games quickly, managing just three points combined, but battled back to take the third game by holding Weisskopf to only four points. In the end, Gross was unable to fully shift the momentum in his favor, dropping the fourth and decisive game in his 1-9, 2-9, 9-4, 1-9 loss.
"I was a bit disappointed," Gross said. "We didn't have the right game-plan mentally and since squash is such a mental game that makes all the difference."
The rest of the match went similarly, with only one Jumbo, apart from Leighton, taking more than one game. Sophomore Joshua Levinson took a two-games-to-none lead over his opponent, sophomore Charlie Johnson, but was unable to hold on after losing a close third game. Levinson dropped the next two games to lose the match in five, 10-8, 9-1, 7-9, 3-9, 2-9.
Senior co-captain Dan Karlin, playing in the No. 6 spot, lost in three-straight games to sophomore Chip Russell, who held Karlin to one point over the first two games and six points in the third, ending Karlin's two-match winning streak with a 1-9, 0-9, 6-9 victory.
Sophomore Chris Delaney, playing in the No. 2 spot, also saw his personal winning streak cut short. Facing off against Bobcat junior tri-captain Sean Wilkinson, Delaney lost the first game by a small margin, but battled back to win the second game in a blowout. Tied 1-1, Delaney and Wilkinson battled for the third, which eventually went to the Bobcats, along with the fourth. Delaney lost 9-6, 1-9, 9-6, 9-2, his first lost since Dec. 7, a stretch spanning six wins.
"I think I played pretty well," Delaney said. "There were a few close matches and the match as a whole was much closer than the score indicates."
Knocked out of the championship bracket of the tournament, the Jumbos still had two other consolation matches on the docket, one against Hamilton, a team that the Jumbos defeated 7-2 a week earlier, and Bowdoin, a team that beat the Jumbos 5-4 on Jan. 26th. The results were similar the second time around.
Falling out of the NESCAC Tournament after a 6-3 loss to No. 4 Amherst in the quarterfinals, Bowdoin overcame Jumbo victories from Gross and freshman John Subranni to win 5-4 again.
"We were really looking forward to this match," Gross said. "We lost a really close match to them earlier this season and we were excited to play them again.
"We had more chances than we did earlier in the season to win, but we just couldn't convert," Gross continued. "It was disappointing."
Hours after losing to the Bobcats, the Jumbos took on the Hamilton Continentals. The Jumbos started slowly but eventually came out on top with a 5-4 win.
"We had a pretty good feeling that we were going to win," Gross said. "But Hamilton has been doing pretty well this season."
The team will face-off against some stiff competition starting tomorrow when it takes on No. 12 Brown, followed by No. 10 Naval Academy, on Saturday and No. 13 Cornell on Sunday before the beginning of next week.
"We're looking to pull out one big match against one of those teams," junior Nelson Schubart said. "We're looking forward for a little bit of luck to fall on our side."
"Our next few matches are going to be tough," Delaney said. "But I believe in our team and I think that if we play like we have nothing to lose and everything to gain that we'll be able to win a few."
