The women's squash team hosted a Brown squad Wednesday that was fresh off an upset win over Stanford and buoyed by its recent bump in the national rankings. The Jumbos failed to pick up a single win and fell 9-0 to the No. 7 Bears at the Belmont School courts, their first 9-0 loss since a pair of shutout decisions in November.
Brown was playing in its first match at its new national ranking, having moved up from No. 9 in Monday's College Squash Association poll. Wins over Bowdoin, Colby and St. Lawrence on Jan. 26 handed the Bears, who started the season slow but have played their way comfortably into the top 10, a six-match winning streak and earned them a two-spot bump in the polls.
"Brown is [a] very tough team, very solid all way through, and we would be fortunate to get a match against them," coach Doug Eng said. "I thought we played very competitively and upsets like this are just very rare in the women's game."
"Brown was the better team and I think each of them was a little more skilled than each of us, but I was really impressed with how each individual match went," sophomore Laura Curren added. "I didn't feel like the score really represented how close we were and how surprisingly well each individual player did."
Just two Jumbos pushed their opponents to four games. Junior Victoria Barba, playing junior Breck Haynes at the No. 2 spot, took the first game 9-7 before dropping the next three. Curren, playing at No. 4, also jumped out ahead with a 9-4 win over freshman Sophie Scherl before Scherl tweaked her game plan, using higher, softer hits to rattle off 9-5, 9-6 and 9-4 wins in the next three games.
"In the first two games, we were really evenly matched; we were hitting low and hard, and they were two very intense and aggressive games," Curren said. "But after the second game, her coach told her to hit more lobs and hit softer and higher off the front wall. She definitely saw my weaknesses and starting playing to them."
"I was very impressed with [Barba and Curren]," Eng added. "Even when we play against a team like Conn. College or Bowdoin or Bates, we often don't win games at those spots, but we were very competitive there [against Brown]."
Indeed, the closest games were actually at the top of the ladder, where Curren and Barba both took games from their opponents and No. 3 sophomore Stef Marx applied some late pressure before falling 9-4, 9-7, 9-6 to senior Minoo Fadaifard. Meanwhile, the depth that has for much of the season carried the Jumbos - the team has relied on wins at Nos. 5 through 9 for several of their victories - fell flat as the bottom half of the ladder fell in straight games.
At No. 6, junior Jess Herrmann gained some traction in the first game, pushing sophomore Sarah Roberts to a 10-8 score, but fell 10-8, 9-0 and 9-3. And a rare loss from freshman Valerie Koo, who is 10-4 this year and 9-2 since Dec. 1, at the No. 5 position was proof that the Jumbos were up against a team just as deep as they are.
"[Brown] just beat Stanford, and I think a lot of that was on their depth," Eng said. "Usually if we're going to win, it's down in the lower half of the varsity; we have Valerie, Jess and [senior co-captain Micela Leis] is a very strong seven. Jess had a great first game, and she was able to control parts of the game, but she had a girl that was going to rally with her. They were tough matches."
While not unexpected, the loss didn't help Tufts in the national ranking, as the team fell from No. 13 to No. 17 in Monday's College Squash Association poll. The slide meant more than just four spots; it dropped the Jumbos from the B Division, which includes teams ranked ninth through 16th, into the C Division. With a B-Division finish as one of their main goals of the season, the Jumbos need to finish their schedule, which includes matches at Bates and at home against Colby this weekend, with victories and hope for a little help from the teams ranked ahead of them.
"We need a little luck," Eng said. "Bates is going to be a tougher match than Colby, especially because we have to travel up to Bates. If we can beat Colby, that will help us out, but we'll probably also need an upset somewhere along the line."
"We've been steadily improving as a team over the past few years, and this year is a breakthrough for us," Curren added. "We started playing well in the beginning of the season and beating teams that we had previously lost to and so it was a realistic goal for us to finish in the B Division. We realized that we're a stronger team than we've been in previous years, and so it was a goal we set early this season."
Colby will likely be the easier of the Jumbos' two weekend matches. The Jumbos faced Bates, ranked 12th nationally, last weekend at the NESCAC Tournament and fell 8-1 to the third-seeded Bobcats. But Colby is sitting just three spots ahead of the Jumbos at No. 14 and will be making the three-hour trip to the courts at MIT. While the Mules have wins over Amherst and Hamilton, both teams that have bested Tufts, the Jumbos are optimistic, counting as much on the do-or-die implications of the match as on the solid play they have seen up and down their roster in recent matches.
"We have to beat Colby in order to be in the B Division; it's a huge match," Curren said. "They have beaten teams that we've lost to, so I think they're a little favored, but we're actually going into it pretty confident. We'll have a full lineup, and we've all been playing really well recently."
Along with a win over Colby, the Jumbos would benefit greatly from a shake-up in the standings. One possible scenario would be an Amherst loss on Saturday. The Jumbos fell 5-4 to the Lord Jeffs in the consolation round of last weekend's NESCAC Tournament, and would benefit from an Amherst stumble. But Eng isn't counting on it: The Lord Jeffs' only chance to fall to a lower-ranked team is their match against a much weaker Wesleyan squad tomorrow.
"If Amherst loses to someone a little lower, then we're back in the picture, but I don't think that will happen," Eng said. "Wishful thinking is easy. We still have to beat Colby, and to do that, we just have to go out there and play our best."
