While our second semester schedules slowly coagulate and classes form out of nebulous WesMaps pages, the men’s squash team is battling the heart of its schedule. This past weekend, the men played three matches against Northwestern, Franklin & Marshall, and Penn State. On Friday, the team battled a talented Northwestern team in a set of matches that yielded unpredictable outcomes. Robert Broadfoot ’10, coming into the match with a 7-1 record, lost 3-1 while two matches ended in 3-2 losses and two more in 3-1 losses. The next day, a dual meet against F&M and Penn State was a polar experience, as Wesleyan fell 9-0 to F&M, but then responded brilliantly with a 9-0 romping of the Nittany Lions.
“The work that we’ve been doing in January is paying off,” said coach Shona Kerr. “That was displayed as play moved on this weekend. If we had played Northwestern later in the weekend, we could have beat them.”
Since coming back early on Jan. 6 for the Snowflake Invitational at Dartmouth University, the squash team has begun to solidify itself with confident play from the entire team.
“We’ve really come together since coming back early,” said Nate Fowles ’10 while re-stringing the team’s high-tech racquet. “It has been good for our younger players who have got a few matches under their belts and have seen what college squash is like.”
At the Snowflake Invitational, Broadfoot and Evan Lodge ’08 advanced to the consolation finals, both with 2-1 records, while Coach Kerr (as coaches were allowed to play in the tournament) went 4-0 on her way to capturing the Women’s “A” title.
The men were 3-3 coming into last weekend’s three matches, and showed significant improvement in blowout match victories over George Washington University, MIT, and Vassar. Combined, Wesleyan out-swatted opponents 24-3 in games won; however in their losses they were only able to win 5 games out of 22.
Such streakiness will only improve with experience, as the team, with no seniors and many underclassmen, logs in more match time.
“A lot of teams pay close attention to rankings and come in with a set mindset of who’s favored,” Fowles said. “We are here to not worry about rankings, rather effort and improvement.”
Now staring the men’s squash team in the face is a slew of tournaments that will truly test how far they have come this year. Upcoming on the weekend of Feb. 2 is the NESCAC Championship Tournament at Trinity College, followed by the battle for the Little Three Title at Williams College the following weekend. Further down the road lie nationals, but the squash team balances its long-term goals with a sharp focus on the present.
“Our goal in the next tournaments is to see all of our hard work expressed on the court,” Kerr said. “Every match is a development of what we can be. Our goal is to be the best team we can come the national tournament, and hopefully we can really peak for that weekend.”
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