Everyone’s favorite sport that shares its name with a vegetable is back. The Cardinal men and women are getting back to the courts as Wesleyan squash looks forward to another season of supremacy.

On the men’s side of things, the 2011 squad that went 14-12 in the regular season and found even greater success in the postseason is getting ready to go. Eight of the top nine squashers from last year’s squad return in 2012 hungry for more. The team looks to build off of a less than stellar National Team Championship outing the previous year in which it placed 23rd after entering the tournament as the 19th seed. With a surplus of veterans itching for the chance to surpass their 2011 standing, the Cards start off with a leg up on fellow NESCAC competitors.

The main hindrance facing the men’s squash team will be playing the 10 first-semester matches sans #1 John Steele ’14 and #3 Jeff Berman ’14, who will both be abroad until January. Steele has been dominant thus far in his time at Wes; he won All-NESCAC honors two years straight and captured Rookie of the Year honors as a freshman. Berman has been stellar, as he played anywhere from the three to five slot and racked up a 14-8 mark last season. Looking to pick up the slack will be co-captains Ethan Moritz ’14 and Zander Nassikas ’14. Faithfully following their captains into squash battle will be #2 Daniel Sneed ’15 and #4 Mike Delalio ’15, while Alex Nunez ’14, Blair Corbin ’15, and Cameron Rahbar ’15 all vie for spots. The outlook for the men’s team is a bright one; the squad is teeming with boundless youth, sporting only one senior on the roster. As the young Cards grow throughout the season they will become a ’Cac force to be reckoned with.

As for the women’s squad, nine returning players played 11 or more matches in 2011, so experience will be the tale of the tape for the season. The women’s squash team pulled off a 14-14 mark on the year, and finished ranked eighth in the NESCAC and in the top 20 in the nation. The Cardinals are poised for even more success in 2012, currently ranked sixth in the NESCAC ahead of Bowdoin, Tufts, and fellow Little Three squad Amherst.

The women’s team faces a similar conundrum in that their two year #1 player Mary Foster ’14 will be abroad for the beginning of the season. Foster currently ranks 93rd nationally and 21st in the NESCAC. In Foster’s absence, senior leadership of co-captains Grace Zimmerman and Danielle Craig will spearhead the squad. Support from #2 Lauren Nelson ’15, #3 Annie Maxwell ’15, and #6 Nell Schwed ’14 will almost certainly ensure that the Cardinals will be in contention for NESCAC supremacy this squash season.

Squash will get underway this weekend when the men’s and women’s teams venture to the Boston Round Robin. Both squads will go up against MIT, Boston College, Middlebury, and Brown as they attempt to start off the new campaign on the right foot.