Senior captain Alex Gross knew that it could be a difficult opening weekend for the No. 20 men's squash team.
"We knew that it was going to be a test for us physically and mentally, with six matches in three days against equal or much higher-ranked teams," Gross said. "For me, I wanted to see the way our players responded to the higher-paced play of better opponents."
In their first Boston Round Robin match on Friday night, the Jumbos had trouble responding to the superior skill and shot-making ability of 14th-ranked Brown. The Jumbos were thoroughly dominated by the Bears, losing every individual match 3-0 except at the No.1 spot, where Gross suffered a hard-fought loss in four games: 12-10, 11-9, 8-11, 11-7.
The Jumbos on Saturday faced a tough triple-header slate of games against Bates, Navy and Conn. College, all of which are ranked among the nation's top 15 by the College Squash Association.
At this point in the tournament, overall stamina and athleticism became even more important for Tufts, a team that was forced to play scrappily all weekend to win points against such difficult competition.
"We've done this before," coach Doug Eng said, "But it's pretty tough to play this much in a weekend. It's like running a marathon. If we win, it's because we fight harder and are steady in the backcourt. We don't win on pure talent."
Although Tufts fell to Bates and Navy, 8-1 and 9-0, respectively, the team's overall play improved dramatically. Against the No. 12 Bobcats, the Jumbos picked up their first individual match win of the season as Gross defeated Bates' Nick Echeverria in four very competitive games. Freshmen Michael Abboud and Jeremy Ho, playing at No. 4 and No. 7 respectively in the Jumbos' starting lineup, came just a few points short of winning their matches against Bates, both losing in four games.
Tufts salvaged its final match on Saturday, however, with a much-needed 5-4 win against the No. 26 Conn. College Camels.
"We knew that Conn. College was going to be the match that we really needed to win on Saturday," Gross said. "At the bottom of the lineup, they were very strong and took those matches. However, some of our other players really stepped up their games and pulled out critical wins."
In addition to Gross, who lost yet another five-game thriller, others elevated their game in winning efforts against the Camels, according to Eng.
"[Senior] Andrew Kim is always battling and came back from two games down against Conn. College," Eng said. "Then [freshman] Tesfa Hailu won his fifth game, 13-11, to secure the match. He really gutted that one out for us."
Besides Kim and Hailu, senior Ben Rind, junior Henry Miller and Abboud won against the Camels, giving Tufts the five individual wins needed to pull out a tight victory.
After a quick rest Saturday night, Tufts returned to the court on Sunday afternoon for its final two matches of the weekend. The Jumbos continued to battle hard but lost both to Williams and Stanford to finish the grueling weekend 1-5.
"Throughout the weekend, we were playing too many defensive shots in the backcourt and not jumping on opportunities like other teams did," Eng said. "We have to set up earlier and set up better. In practice, we'll be working on creating more offense for the players."
Although Eng was not satisfied with the Jumbos' overall offensive shot-making, he praised the team's continued effort against very strong competition.
"In general, there's a lot of fight in them," Eng said. "We're good at hustling and using the backcourt. This team, overall, plays a very fundamental game."
"Everyone played hard in every match, even when we faced teams ranked much higher than us," Miller said. "I think since these were the first matches, it's obvious the team was not playing its best, but this is not to say we didn't play well. We had a fun weekend, got a lot of great practice and figured out what we each need to work on to play at a higher level. We will stay active over Thanksgiving break and train hard next week, so we should be ready for [the] Wesleyan [match on Dec. 3]."
