The Women’s Squash team came away from the weekend’s Smith/Mt.Holyoke Invitational with its first win on the season as the ladies blanked Haverford College, 9-0. Coupled with a win over the Conn. College Camels, 6-3, in the friendly halls of Fayerweather Gymnasium on Wednesday night, the exhilarated women are riding a two match winning streak. With only a few matches scheduled before the Little Three and National Championships, the squad is finding a winning groove at the opportune time. The Cardinals are currently ranked 23rd in the College Squash Association rankings.
“I attribute our recent success to learning from our mistakes and gaining experience against our competitors,” said captain Sa Suwanarat ’04, who appeared humble about her team’s recent victories. “The team is very encouraged by the winning and we hope to prove that we can fair well against our level of competition in the next few weeks.”
“The women’s team had their best win of the season, defeating Conn. College, 6-3, a team currently ranked 3 spots higher [20th],” said head coach David Cukierman. “It was an extremely important victory, and this was definitely our best performance of the year. Every player showed an aggression to the ball and a willingness to fight for every ball, and the patience not to play the ball to the front of the court too early.”
The Men’s squad collected two victories of their own over the weekend at the University of Pennsylvania. Saturday’s early match saw Wesleyan defeat the University of Rochester, 6-3. In the afternoon match, the Cardinals rang the Liberty Bell, beating the eighteenth ranked team from George Washington University, 7-2.
Behind the two wins, the Cardinals will ascend the College Rankings from their number twenty-three standing. The Cardinals still have two crucial position-determining matches against the Colby Mules and the Tufts Jumbos in the coming weeks. Wins in the final two significant matches will potentially culminate in a favorable ranking for the “C” Division of the National Championships.
“Everyone is really stoked with the results. We understand the importance of our upcoming matches… Pretty soon life could be so rad,” said Umay Suanda ’05, who won both of his matches at the number six slot on Saturday.
While the men collected wins against their Saturday competitors, they fell twice on Sunday—8-1 losses to both the Naval Academy and Franklin and Marshall College. James Utterback ’04 was a bright spot in the number eight slot, winning all four of his matches, picking up Wesleyan’s lone wins against Navy and Franklin and Marshall.
The men were scheduled to play Conn. College in New London Tuesday evening, but the match was cancelled due to inclement weather and may be rescheduled for next week. Prior to the makeup date, the squad will travel to Trinity on Saturday the 7th to clash with the Brown University Bears and the Colby College White Mules.
“The men had two vital wins over higher-ranked Rochester and GW, moving from seventh to fourth spot in C Division,” Cukierman said. “This Saturday we play the most important match of the regular season, against our arch-rival of recent years, Colby. Up for grabs is the vital third position in C Division.”
Despite their two wins, the Lady Cardinals also fell three times over the weekend. In Saturday’s matches, the women lost to Smith College and Franklin and Marshall by scores of 6-3 in both matches. Before their Sunday afternoon triumph over Haverford, the women lost to Wellesley College, 8-1. Next the team will travel to New London on Saturday looking to break the Connecticut College Camels’ humps for the second time while also matching up against the Tufts University Jumbos.
“This is exactly the spark we were looking for coming into the last weeks of the season,” Cukierman said. “We will have a chance to prove it wasn’t a fluke when we play Conn. College this Saturday.”
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