The women’s squash team was in many ways victims of its own succes at the National Squash Tournament held at Harvard this past weekend. Because of their increased success this season, the Cards moved up to the more competitive C-Division. Also called “The Walker Cup,” the division is for teams ranked 17th to 24th nationally. Throughout the tournament, the women fought hard but struggled against higher-ranked teams.
In the first round, the Lady Cardinals were downed by top-seeded Amherst, 8-1. Andrea Giuliano’s ’09 won at the number eight position in a tight match, 9-7 9-5 7-9 9-5. But perhaps the player of the weekend for the Lady Cards was Kate Jones ’06, who won her final two matches to close out her Cardinal career. In its first consolation round, the team faced Tufts, one of the top teams in the division. Though the Cards were again defeated 8-1, many matches against the Jumbos were tightly contested.
In the women’s final match of the tournament versus Mount Holyoke, the women again dropped an 8-1 decision where the final score was not indicative of the team’s performance. Against Mount Holyoke, five different Cardinals each won at least one game.
All in all, the 7-21 Cardinals seemed very pleased with the way they battled hard against their higher ranked opponents.
“We played some really tough teams, and all in all we kicked ass,” said Christine Speir ’06. “I think everyone on the team had at least one match that was worthy of a standing ovation.”
Even though they have been an integral part of the team, Jones and Captain Alex Loh ’06 will be the only starters not returning to the lineup next year. With the rest of the squad returning, the women are optimistic about the team’s future.
“Achieving a ranking of 24 in the U.S., which includes Division I, II, and III schools is a great achievement,” said Head Coach Shona Kerr. “It also meant we moved from being a D-Division program to a C-Division program in one year. It did mean we faced stiffer competition, and had we been in the D-Division we would have posted more wins. But this is the direction the program needs to be going and Wesleyan Squash should be proud of that.“
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