In their final team competition of the year, the Wesleyan men’s squash team headed up to Boston for the National Team Championship. They played three matches, all against teams that they had played earlier in the year. The squash team made an improvement as the men posted better scores against each team the second time around. First came Columbia, whom Wes had lost to 4-5 previously, but Columbia fell 6-3 this time. George Washington University and the Amherst Lord Jeffs had both previously beaten Wes (2-7 and 1-8, respectively), but the Cardinals improved the margin in each match last weekend, falling 4-5 to GW and 2-7 to the Lord Jeffs.

The Cards put on a great showing, led by John Steele ’14, Zander Nassikas ’14, Jeff Berman ’14, and Alex Nunez ’14, all of whom went 2-1 to tie for Wesleyan’s best record on the weekend. The matches against Columbia and George Washington were both thrilling and could have gone either way, but unfortunately for the Cards, they could only pull out one victory, despite wins from Nunez, Berman, Nassikas and co-captain Dale Kobrin ’11.

Despite the somewhat disappointing 1-2 record last weekend, the Wesleyan men’s squash team capped off its most successful season in 10 years. Their 14-12 season mark was the best for the program since their 11-6 2001 campaign. Head coach Shona Kerr has built a program that has grown in leaps and bounds since she took over the helm in 2006 and in her next season posted a 6-13 final record. The team this year was lead by a host of talented freshmen. These frosh posted great records (Steele 19-6, Nassikas 17-9, Nunez 16-10, and Berman 15-8) and combined for just over half of all of Wesleyan’s victories. With this young core of players, Wesleyan looks to continue this season’s success, even despite the departure of Mathew Candal ’11 (15-9 on the year) and Kobrin (12-14).

Despite the end of regular-season play, some of the Cards will travel to Dartmouth this weekend to participate in the National Individual Championships. Even as such a successful season draws to a close, the Cardinals still wish they could have done more.

“I don’t think we will be satisfied until we turn the 6-3 and 5-4 losses into wins,” Nunez said. “But, that’s part of having a young team and having a season like this gives us a lot of confidence coming into the next one.”

Hopefully the Cards can keep from getting complacent (an ability Nunez attributes much of their success to) and build upon a strong year with an even stronger one.