The men's and women's squash teams both competed in their first matches of the season at home this weekend at the Dartmouth Fall Classic. The Big Green dominated their competition with gusto, not losing a single match.
"Really, to not drop a match over all the weekend shows that we're at a really high level, and it's obviously very encouraging," captain Mike Lewis '11 said. "Everyone played very well, and I'm very proud of the team."
Hannah Conant '11, captain of the women's team, expressed similar sentiments.
"It was really nice to start the season with a double win, and to not lose a match throughout the weekend was a good sign that our hard work has started to pay off," she said.
The men's team started against Navy on Friday evening and proceeded to sweep their matches, shutting out the Midshipmen, 9-0. The only match that went past three games was at the No. 7 spot, where Robbie Maycock '13 defeated Thomas McNamara of Navy in four sets. Maycock lost the first set, 11-8, but managed to come back strong and won the second, third and fourth sets 11-8, 11-2 and 11-9, respectively.
"I felt my match against Navy went well overall, however it was tough to lose the first game, especially to an opponent known for his fitness and determination," Maycock said. "As a team, we have been working on the precision of our shots and our movement. I felt the improvements after the first game, where superior control and efficient movement lead to my opponent tiring and subsequently opening up the court. While I didn't change my game plan, the damage done in a tight first game reaped results later on."
Saturday morning saw the women's squash team breeze by the Bowdoin College Polar Bears in quick fashion again, Dartmouth didn't lose a single set of a single match. Valeria Wiens '13 started off by winning at the No. 1 spot, Conant won easily at the No. 2 spot and Corey Schafer '13 was victorious in the No. 3 spot.
"It was definitely nice to have had everyone win, not only for the record's sake but also to get the freshmen experience playing at the college level," Schafer said. "It was a great way to start our season with two wins."
The women's team has been incorporating much more physical fitness work into their practices, according to Conant.
"We're more fit than we've ever been right now, and it's definitely helping," she said. "We're definitely still keeping a good blend of skillwork and drills as well.
At No. 4, Becky Lau '13 won her first two sets 11-0 and her final set 11-2. In what might have been the easiest victory of the day, Melina Turk '14 won her match 11-0, 11-0, 11-0. Kensy Balch '14 won her first collegiate match in the No. 7 spot, Julia Watson '12 won at No. 8 and Katherine Nimmo '14 won handily at the No. 9 spot, winning 11-2, 11-0, 11-0, to round out an impressive showing by the Class of 2014.
"It's definitely encouraging going forward to see our freshmen play really well, and we're eager for it to continue," Schafer said.
Later in the day, the men's team experienced similar success, downing the Polar Bears without losing a match. All of the matches were decided in three sets, except for the duel at No. 5, where Luke Lee '12 had a battle on his hands against Rahul Mohan, finally winning in five sets.
"It was a great showing for us," Lewis said. "We've been practicing really hard, and we wanted it to show. We won pretty convincingly, and we showed that we're fit and that we can play really solidly at a high level."
On Sunday, both the men's and women's teams played Hamilton College and won their matches 9-0, 9-0 despite Schafer's claims that it "proved to be a tougher test."
Still, the team is not going to simply dwell on that victory, according to Lewis.
"We have Harvard [University] in just about 10 days, and that's one of our bigger rivalries," he said. "We're going to try and stay fit and keep training as much as we can. We are trying to be very fine-tuned and have everything worked out for Dec. 1."
Both teams take on Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., on Dec. 1 at 7:00 p.m.
