Eben Clattenburg '09 limped back into the squash court at the Berry Squash Center and muttered something inaudible in French. He picked up his racket, tapped it gently against the glass of the back wall and proceeded to dominate his Cornell University adversary. Big Green assistant coach David Heath called the competition "one of the best matches of [Clattenburg's] short college career."
Spurred by Clattenburg's effort, the No. 8 Big Green eked out a huge victory over the No. 7 Cornell Big Red Saturday. With the game tied at four wins apiece, the Big Green men's team needed a huge triumph from freshman sensation Andrew Boumford. A win for the Big Green, however, would require Boumford to overcome Cornell No. 1 Matt Serediak, who had consistently taken Boumford down in Canadian juniors matches.
"All week he had been telling us how he always lost to Serediak in the juniors, so Serediak definitely had a mental edge and we were worried about how that would affect his play," Hank Alexander '06 said.
Down 2-1 and struggling in the fourth game, something clicked for the freshman. After breaking a 9-9 stalemate that lasted about five points, Boumford managed to pull out a close victory.
During the fifth game, the rather large home crowd began to get extremely vocal, sensing an Ivy League upset at the Big Green Winter Classic. One member of the crowd even screamed out, "This is our house!"
And on Saturday night it was. Boumford rallied to beat Serediak 3-2 and seal an exciting victory for the Big Green. Head coach John Power, a Canadian himself, was excited for Boumford, and the all-Canadian final match.
"I felt very happy for Andrew Boumford when he was able to come back from match ball to defeat a fellow Western Canadian, Matt Serediak in the final match -- very exciting."
The loss was a devastating one for the Big Red, a club that now finds itself on the outside of the top eight collegiate men's squash teams in the draw for the College Squash Association (CSA) Championships.
The men rolled in two of their three other matches, demolishing St. Lawrence 9-0 on Saturday, before falling to Western Ontario 6-3 and trouncing Hobart 9-0 on Sunday.
The men's record now stands at 9-4 on the season, and the team sits poised to be in the CSA championship mix. "It was a great contest and this puts us in a strong position to finish above our ranking position of No. 8 if we can continue in this vein next weekend at Brown," Heath avowed.
The Big Green women enjoyed what has become a customary easy victory, winning both of their matches 9-0 against Cornell and St. Lawrence over the weekend. The team's record now stands at 7-3 on the season. Maintaining their winning ways will not be easy for the women racqueteers, however, with tough matches against Brown, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton over the next two weekends.
Star senior Julia Drury admitted that the women's matches were not quite as enthralling as the men's this weekend.
"Our matches this weekend certainly weren't quite as exciting as the men's matches," she said. "Everyone played well and beat their opponents handily."
Drury was the only Dartmouth player to drop even a game against the weekend competition in a victory over Cornell's top player, Maxi Prensen.
Next weekend, the Dartmouth women travel to Bowdoin College and Colby College on Saturday, and Brown on Sunday. The Big Green men will take on the same teams, with their match against Brown looming large due to its CSA championship implications. Clattenburg, who called his team to task several weeks ago to come together for the Cornell game, will be sidelined for this weekend's action with a nagging ankle injury that was aggravated against the Big Red. Still, he thinks the men can trap the Bears this Sunday.
"You can bet on it," he said. "We've started to come together as a team, and that's what counts." As long as the CSA ranking committee feels the same way, the Big Green should be in excellent shape for the remainder of the season.
