What a difference a few points could have made.
As the men's squash team closed out team play in mid-February, it finished with a 10-9 overall record - its first above-.500 finish since the 2002-2003 campaign - and a College Squash Association (CSA) No. 18 national ranking. That said, Tufts had several opportunities to take close 5-4 matches but failed to convert them to wins, as the Jumbos finished in the Summers Division, the third tier of squash teams for programs seeded between Nos. 17 and 24 nationally.
"Just hanging in the top 20 is a great accomplishment," coach Doug Eng said. "We would have loved to have finished in the second division. We would have to be satisfied with the way we ran in the season but not everything fell our way though."
"Everybody played their best and gave their best effort, and you can't really ask for any more, but when the time really mattered, we didn't deliver," senior tri-captain Kris Leetavorn added.
Tufts had the chance to improve on its final record in three 5-4 contests that the Jumbos ultimately ended up losing, including two matches with No. 15 Amherst, on Dec. 6 and Feb. 3, and one on Feb. 6 with No. 14 Brown, a Div. I school.
"We lost to Amherst and threw match points and lost to Brown 5-4, which was tough," Eng said. "On the other hand, we've never had a 5-4 match with Brown, so we got close and if we had beaten Brown it would have been he first time we've beaten an Ivy [League School] in 18 or 19 years. It would have been a major accomplishment."
Both Eng and Leetavorn, however, warned against relying on overall season records, and to a lesser extent rankings, when judging a team's season performance.
"When you look at the rankings of a team, there's virtually no difference between a team ranked No. 15 [heading into CSA Nationals] like Brown and us because we had match points against Brown and we didn't convert, and we had match points in both matches against Amherst and didn't convert," Leetavorn said. "And with St. Lawrence that finished [ranked] 17th, we beat them the first time, but the second time we didn't play as well."
After entering CSA Team Nationals at No. 17, the Jumbos fell to St. Lawrence 6-3 Feb. 17 in the Summers Division final to end the year at No. 18.
In moving past those narrow 5-4 matches that could have boosted the Jumbos from the third division to the second, reserved for teams ranked ninth through 16th, the Jumbos know how close they came to winning and will look to turn those tough losses into hard-earned victories next season.
"You just got to work hard," Eng said. "You always have to work hard, and I think we always have the capacity to work a little harder; that's all you have to do in a match situation. I don't think we lost a match because we gave it away or something like that. We just didn't get it and that happens.
"[Losing close matches] happens to any team, and they start labeling themselves chokers, or people start labeling you that way and you start to doubt yourself and you begin to wonder what you've been doing," he continued. "I think you've just got to ignore it and just keep plugging away."
Leetavorn cited the game's psychological aspect as a key to buckling down in tight situations.
"One of the most important things is the mental toughness," Leetavorn said. "It's really tough for me to see a team lose that many matches in 5-4 situations. I think it comes down to your wanting more than your opponent or not. If you look at [sophomore] Zach Bradley, he's won like 10 tough matches in a row, and most of them were in the score 3-2 as well, and on the court he really showed that he wanted the match."
"Maybe it's just a matter of being in that position more often, you get used to coming to the point of beating a higher-seeded team and you're not nervous about it, so you don't lose it," he said.
Looking ahead to next season, the Jumbos will have to bid farewell to seniors Leetavorn, Jonah Peppiatt and tri-captains Jake Gross and Nelson Schubart. Gross had a truly breakout season for Tufts, going 17-2 in team play, good for All-NESCAC honors, en route to a 53-21 career record, the most wins in the program's history.
Adjusting to these seniors' departures will leave holes in the ladder, especially at No. 1 where Gross played all four seasons of his collegiate career.
"It's going be a different team next year," Eng said. "We won't have Jake. It's hard to say whether the team will be better or worse, it's so early right now. Most likely it will be a little weaker, but it could be better, or it could be deeper.
"You just have to work a little harder," he continued. "You always have to do that, especially if you're missing the talent at the top or if you're not as talented at the top. We kind of accept that. It's possible we might be stronger, but you always have to work harder, you can't take anything for granted, regardless of whether you end up on top or in the middle."
In terms of goals for the Jumbos to work toward next season, Eng said he wanted to work on refining the squad's solid, yet basic, squash play.
"What I would like to do is envision a kind of overall training that involves using the court a little better," Eng said. "It cost us a few matches; we weren't able to use the court as effectively as some other teams and to do that you have to work on the front court shot, the accuracy of your shot, and technique. Our strengths were definitely being backcourt, hitting hard, cutting off and playing a very basic game. That's been our strategy."
While continuing to reach for that elusive spot in the second division remains atop the Jumbos' priority list, the loss of senior talent will certainly be an obstacle to overcome before setting hopes on advancing the team's national standing.
"Next year I say you have to keep trying to improve and setting individual goals for each player," Leetavorn said. "The team's goal for the rankings is going to be quite hard with so many people graduating and people going abroad as well. So I think next year, mainly the team should start out concentrating on individual goals more than team ones. And once we have more players and the lineups are better, then you can work on improving the rankings."
"The last two years, it was our goal [to make Division 2]," Eng said. "And we should have made it, and we had a really good chance this year, but it didn't happen.
"We could have conceivably been second division every year except for Jake's freshman year. It's hard to say. We'll have to see where recruiting goes. We're losing so many players, so if we could just hold onto [No.] 18, I would be very happy."
