Five matches into the season, the women's squash team is what it was expected to be — a team firmly entrenched in the national top 25.
In a busy five-match weekend, the No. 23 Jumbos were blanked by three teams in front of them in the Women's College Squash Association rankings — No. 10 Brown, No. 12 Bates and No.13 Mount Holyoke — and held their own against two teams close on their heels, No. 29 Smith and No. 24 Conn. College.
"We have no regrets and we're happy with how we played," senior co-captain Valerie Koo said. "We're happy that we beat the teams that we should have beat, and we got some good experience against three great teams."
The team on Sunday split a double-header against Smith and Mount Holyoke, losing to the Lyons 9-0 and dispatching the Pioneers 8-1.
In the Smith match, junior Alix Michael, who had recently ascended to the top spot on the ladder, dominated 11-4, 11-2, 11-6. The lone Tufts loss came from sophomore Caitlin Doherty, who along with fellow sophomore Risa Meyers, is playing her first season with the team and learning as she goes along.
Meyers was one of two Jumbos to go to games in Saturday's NESCAC matchup with the Camels at Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Mass. The matchup was part of the Boston Round Robin Tournament that Tufts won 6-3. Meyers lost in five, but sophomore Hafsa Chaudry prevailed in her match in the No. 7 singles slot, helping Tufts earn two victories over teams below them in the standings, wins that are crucial for a team that aims to maintain its standing in the national C Division.
"If we had dropped the match to Smith or Conn. College, we might have dropped back into the D Division," sophomore Ushashi Basu said. "It's important for us to stay above those teams."
Early on in the season, the team is already feeling good about having its own coach, Belkys Velez, as opposed to sharing coach Doug Eng with the men's team as before. Instead of practicing at the same location, the men's and women's teams have been switching off this season between Belmont Hill and Harvard.
"Our new coach is awesome," Basu said. "The guys and girls used to overlap practice, and now we have a lot more time to do drills. We're working harder at practice and doing more conditioning."
The development of the inexperienced Doherty and Meyers will be key as the season wears on, and the seasoned veterans have taken it upon themselves to teach the youngsters the ingredients of success.
"They're both completely new to squash, which is special, I guess," Koo said. "We usually get girls who have played in high school. But they will improve and get more match fit with every competition."
"It's been definitely nerve-wracking, because it's such an individual sport," Doherty said. "The older girls on the team just told me to ignore the people watching, and [junior co-captain Mercedes Barba] told me to think of a song in my head as I played, which helped."
Tufts' landslide win over Smith was especially impressive, given that Vassar, a team that the Jumbos will face later in the season, only beat the Pioneers 6-3. With Sunday's win, the Jumbos moved to 2-3 on the year, and will continue their fall slate on Dec. 2 at Wellesley — a team that recently leapfrogged from No. 30 to No. 28 in the national standings — and the following day at Wesleyan.
The Jumbos will play challenge matches against each other to gear up for these contests.
"Last week, I lost to Alix, so I'll be playing [team No.3] Mercedes next in practice," Koo said. "We're always challenging each other, to make sure that the ladder is as accurate as possible and to keep us all motivated."
According to Koo, the key in the Wellesley and Wesleyan matches will be the team's depth, and these matches will be a good gauge of Doherty's and Meyers' improvement.
"It will depend a lot on the mid to the bottom of our ladder," she said. "We'll see how much the bottom of the ladder has improved. If we can do that, we'll have a good chance at beating them."
