After a season marked by encouraging victories and heart-breaking defeats, the men’s squash team now embarks on its whirlwind postseason.
The Cardinals find themselves in a very competitive C flight bracket that includes several highly-ranked squads that challenged the men during the regular season. A familiar foe, the Colby Mules, will be the first test for the Red and Black during the National Tournament weekend.
“I’m happy about [drawing Colby] because we lost to them in a close 5-4 match having played a match earlier that day,” said co-captain Andrew Rozas ’06. “So I look forward to being able to play them with fresh legs, and hopefully turn the results around.”
The Cardinals were at risk of not playing in the C flight, a field composed of the teams ranked 17th through 24th nationally. Ranked 27th for much of the year, a late semester victory over Saint Lawrence University catapulted the Cardinals into the 24th and final position. While seeded against the top team in the flight, Wes has a decent chance of coming out on top.
“We’ve beaten St. Lawrence 6-3, lost to Conn. College, Colby and Tufts 5-4 and lost to Hamilton 6-3 with two of those losses coming in the first semester when we had a weaker lineup,” said coach David Tedeschi, alluding to several other teams the Cardinals may face over the weekend. “The parity in the C flight is amazing, unprecedented really.”
The Cardinals will be seeing the Mules for the second time in little over a fortnight, having faced Colby on February 5th. That match, played in the new Rosenbaum Squash Center, was in doubt until the very end, when Wesleyan held a 4-2 lead before dropping the last three matches. The match will likely hinge on how well the players at the bottom of the ladder fair against their Maine opponents.
“Our strength this season has been in our depth, so I’m expecting the bottom of the ladder to do well,” Tedeschi said. “[While] I don’t feel any individual is better positioned to win his match then any other, our senior captain Umay Suanda is playing the best squash of his career and could have a big weekend.”
Suanda, regularly seeded sixth and finished the season with a 9-6 record, best on the team.
Another player to keep an eye on is Rozas, who missed the season-ending Little Three tournament with injured knees. Normally manning the second position, having Rozas in the lineup allows the rest of his teammates to play in their regular slots.
“Andrew’s movement, his greatest strength, is hampered by his knee injury but I expect he’ll be able to courageously fight through the pain and up to his potential,” Tedeschi said. “Other than Andrew, however, our team is as healthy now as we’ve been all semester.”
While the entire team hit the skids against Williams and Amherst (both matches went 9-0 against Wesleyan), several players strung together some wins before Little Threes. Evan Lodge ’08 and Omair Sarwar ’05 both won four of their last five matches against the likes of Colby, Conn. College and St. Lawrence. Dylan Rau ’06 and Phil Wallach ’05 went 3-2 in the same period. The bottom of the lineup got an added boost when Ian Carbone ’06 and Than Chantaralawan ’05 each returned to the team to go 3-1. The top Cardinal, Andy Aylward ’07, has not seen too many matches go in his favor recently, but the Buffalo native is due for a hot streak. With good health and some sense of momentum, a Cardinal upset may be in the offing.
“I think we have a hard fight in front of us, but all the matches we played were so close before, that I think if we keep up our intensity, we have a good chance ourselves,” Rozas said.
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