In its final matches before winter break, the national No. 22 men's squash team went 3-1, recording on Sunday three wins against in-state rivals Boston University, MIT and Boston College and on Friday a loss to the 29th-ranked Wesleyan Cardinals. With these results, Tufts' overall record stands at 4-6 heading into the month-long break.
At host Wesleyan, the Jumbos struggled to limit their mistakes and were swept, 9-0. The most competitive match once again came at the top, where Tufts senior captain Alex Gross took a two-game lead on the Cardinals No. 1, John Steele. The Wesleyan freshman charged back, however, and took three straight games off of Gross for an extremely hard-fought win, 8-11, 10-12, 11-3, 11-9, 11-8.
Besides Gross, only two other Tufts players won individual games. Seniors Ben Rind, playing at No. 2, and Andrew Kim at No. 5, both lost their matches to Wesleyan opponents in four games.
Despite the loss, Gross believes that the Jumbos, with improvement, could put up a better fight against the Cardinals if the two teams meet again at the end of the season.
"Wesleyan proved to have our number last Friday night in every spot," Gross said. "Although the score was extremely lopsided, I am looking forward to hopefully playing them again at the end of the year because I think that if we continue to work hard, it will be a good gauge to see our improvement."
After the loss, the Jumbos had to quickly make adjustments to their play as they faced a triple-header test at MIT just two days later. The Jumbos, however, had no trouble with in-state competition, trouncing 43rd-ranked Boston University 8-1, followed by another 8-1 defeat of host MIT.
Boston College offered more of a challenge in Tufts' final match of the day, but the Jumbos held off the 38th-ranked Eagles 6-3 to finish the day 3-0 overall.
Tufts coach Doug Eng praised his team's play at the top of the lineup, but was hoping for better play from his entire team on Sunday.
"We played well through the top half of the lineup," Eng said. "But I think we need more experience and match toughness lower in the lineup. Those guys need to work on hitting better backhands and need to play with more consistency and match toughness."
One of the inevitabilities of the winter collegiate season is the break in between semesters, a time for all teams to rest, regroup and refocus their minds on the rest of the season. According to Gross, the coaches will let each player know individually what he needs to work on the most over the next month, but the whole team will maintain its level of fitness by exercising and playing matches against other local squash players.
"I think that as long as we keep our fitness up, listen to what the coaches address and get in at least two matches a week over break, we will be in great shape for the start of the next semester," Gross said. "Because squash is an individual sport, it is pretty easy to do things on your own, and this break offers a chance for the motivated teams to make large improvements."
Eng is also this season stressing regular weight training for players to improve their strength while at home.
"Some of our guys need stronger lower bodies for movement, power and agility," he said. "Quickness in squash is really a matter of lower body strength."
The Jumbos kick off next semester with four matches on Jan. 22 and 23 against teams that are all ranked higher than Tufts in the Collegiate Squash Association's national list. Still, Gross believes that his team's continued effort in practice will eventually manifest itself in matches.
"The matches in the second half of the season will hopefully show that our players worked hard and improved over break," Gross said. "We are still young and will still benefit from every time we step out on court. If we can just maintain our motivation and optimism, we will begin to see our hard work pay off."
