The women's squash team continued its excellence by beating both Middlebury College and Amherst College, while the men's team dropped a close battle against Amherst on Wednesday at the Berry Sports Center.
The Big Green women smashed Middlebury winning all of the matches for a 9-0 result, while each of the Big Green women finished in the minimum three sets. Dartmouth rallied on to defeat Amherst 8-1, in which seven out of Dartmouth's eight victories were also finished within three-straight sets.
By virtue of the women's sweep, their undefeated regular season record, 8-0. It is the best record since 1980-81 season.
"We are off to a great start," Head Coach John Power said. "We are 8-0, and we could possibly finish fourth. But the top three teams -- Princeton, Harvard and Penn -- are very strong. It's unlikely that we could beat them at this point. After that, thirty teams are at the same level. Among them, we are considerably strong."
Meanwhile, the men's team struggled against Amherst and suffered its second straight loss in a four-day span. Despite leading the match 4-3 with two games left, the Big Green dropped the final two games, including a match between the No. 1 players on both teams.
Beau River '00, a second team all-American selection a year ago, was blanked by the No. 1 player from Amherst, David McNeely 15-11, 15-10, 15-8.
Big Green No. 2 Hamed Anvari '02 suffered a tough four-set loss against Amherst senior Kevin Orphan, 13-15, 15-12, 15-11, 15-13.
Dartmouth lost the top five match-ups of the ladder while winning all four lower positions. Dartmouth's victories came from Will Flatley '99, Bill Reisner '02, James Juda '02 and Colin Greenspon '00.
Despite the Big Green's advantage in depth down the lineup, their top five players could not play with the five best from Amherst.
By virtue of the loss, the men's team is now 3-2 on the season.
"We knew that [the Amherst men] were strong at the top end of the ladder," first-year coach Power said. "Our No. 4 player on the team (Will Leicht '99) had a job interview, and he couldn't avoid it unfortunately. And that may have made a big difference today."
"But, we are quite optimistic," he continued. "If we are to play them again in the season finale, we would be able to turn that around."
"We are very proud of our guys," Power said. "They all played very well today. The team is looking very good. We have already beaten two teams that were ranked ahead of us at the end of last year."
Both the Dartmouth men's and women's teams will host Trinity College and Vassar College on Saturday.
The Trinity men will enter the contest ranked No. 1 in the country.
"They have depth going right down to number 18 on their ladder," Power said. "And they have quality players, more than half of whom are fairly renowned international players from South Africa, England, Israel and particularly India,"
"They are a pretty tough team. So we are looking for experience in that one."
Power added that the Vassar College squads are significantly weaker than those from Trinity and should be an easier task for both teams. "But the women are also going to be locked in a very good battle with Trinity on Saturday," Power said.
