After a busy weekend of five matches that went pretty much as expected, with four losses to some of the nation's elite programs and a win over a decidedly easier opponent, the men's squash team (1-4) derived some key experience for its relatively young and inexperienced lineup.
Despite being slammed 9-0 in four of its five matches with top-tier competition, including losses to preseason No. 1 Trinity on Friday in Hartford, Conn., No. 9 Dartmouth and No. 12 Navy Saturday in Hanover, N.H. and No. 10 Williams at Harvard on Sunday, the exposure to these top teams for the No. 19 Jumbos offered a prime opportunity get on court and notch the players' first collegiate competition of the 2008-09 campaign. Indeed, though the scores would indicate otherwise, the team did improve on its play as the weekend progressed
"We had some very difficult competition this weekend, a very tough opening weekend," senior tri-captain Josh Levinson said. "I will say, especially in the first match we had a couple of jitters especially from just a little nervousness getting out there, but we really feel that the team improved throughout the weekend and we took what happened in each match and used it for the next one ... Although it seemed like the scores were very lopsided, I feel that we did very well and the team as a whole bonded, and the morale right now is better than it was going into the weekend."
In what served as the squad's first series of matches this season, the Jumbos posted a lineup with seven of its nine players who were either true rookies in collegiate competition or had seen limited play as upperclassmen in past years. And while the emphasis was not on picking up victories per se, the slew of five matches, including the four resounding losses, offered benefits to the players on a personal level.
"Just individually, I think it was pretty huge for a lot of people who haven't played that many matches," senior tri-captain Brian Rassel said. "A lot of these younger guys, to be thrown into the fire in this one without being unreasonable about it, without there being pressure on them in terms of what their win-loss outcome was. A number of them showed some pretty good resolve; it doesn't necessarily come out in terms of the scores or the tallies."
"I'd say where the improvement was especially was that people started playing a lot smarter; a lot of the players were thinking a lot more, they were changing the pace, and they were choosing their shots a lot wiser, and that was very good to see especially from the freshmen on the team," Levinson added.
Aside from notching valuable match experience, the squad also posted a resounding 9-0 victory over No. 35 Vanderbilt at Bowdoin on Sunday, the team's first win of the young winter season, before suffering defeat later that afternoon at the hands of the Ephs in Cambridge.
"It felt very good to get that win behind our backs," Levinson said. "Again we had three very difficult matches: Trinity, Dartmouth and Navy are all excellent programs with very fit players, and going into the Vanderbilt match we knew that we would probably have an advantage as far as skill and fitness and we just knew to keep our heads in the game, not make mistakes and to play as hard as we can, and that's what everyone did."
"[One thing] about the Vanderbilt match was in terms of relative scale, our execution versus an opponent who at least on paper might not be as strong as us was a great thing to see," Rassel added. "Because obviously we saw that all weekend with teams that on paper were much better than us and able to execute against us. I think that [the win] was a good sign of good things to come in terms of when we are able to win keeping it together."
Given the busyness of five squash contests in one travel-intensive weekend, both Rassel and Levinson cited the team's resilience and fitness across the three days of competition as an important strength of the squad.
"What was really good is, especially with the long weekends, with five matches in three days at four different schools, it takes a big toll on the team physically," Levinson said. "It was very good to see that although there were some minor scrapes throughout the weekend, we were more or less injury-free and we were able to continue to play at a level at the beginning of the weekend and even improve through the end which was great to see from the team on an effort-side and on a fitness-side."
"I think at no point during the weekend did physical fatigue become a real factor, and that's a big bonus for us," Rassel said. "I think that our rackets and our mental game were coming around with the experience in the matches and that wasn't eroded by the fact that we're obviously physically wearing down, but we were able to keep it together, which is I think just a good sign of the work we put in this fall, which was probably the thing I was most proud of coming out of the weekend."
With five of the seven matches prior to winter break in the books, Tufts now takes a 10-day break before heading to Amherst and then MIT for a pair of key matches to close out the tune-up portion of the winter season. And with the experience netted from its taxing weekend behind it, the team hopes to further elevate its play with this admittedly temporary lineup -- four starting juniors will return from abroad to compete in the spring -- and come away with positive results.
"I think in terms of taking this time [before Amherst] to think about what we're working on, each player, and then I think Amherst is going to be a time for some players, hopefully, to have a breakout day where they beat people, take games [and] push games to being long and tight, and hopefully some people take their piece of the match because that's very possible; it's not like Amherst is some untouchable team for us," Rassel said. "But as far as growing against players who are a bit stronger than us, the same concepts [from the past weekend] and this time set the bar a little bit higher because we are going to be fresh.
