After losses to a perennial rival, the Yale squash teams aim to rebound this weekend against easier opponents.
The No. 6-ranked Yale men (4–3, 1–1 Ivy) fell 8–1 to No. 2 Trinity on Wednesday evening, and the Yale women (7–1, 2–0 Ivy) suffered their first loss of the year, 7–2. Both Trinity teams have perfect 11–0 records on the season.
The men’s sole win came from Liam McClintock ’17, who played the No. 4 position. After losing the first two game 11–6, 11–9, McClintock faced a seemingly insurmountable deficit going into the third. He was able to establish a foothold, winning the third game 11–4. The fourth and fifth games were a test of determination, and the Bulldog’s superior conditioning earned him a narrow victory with 14–12 and 13–11 wins.
“The box score of Trinity doesn’t fairly represent the intensity of the match,” said Nader Rastegar ’18. “Trinity is obviously a very talented team, but they’re also an older, much more experienced group that has six seniors in their starting line up. Many games were tightly contested but they pulled out in front, which energized their crowd. We had a lot of close matches and [we] look forward to playing them again at Nationals.”
Just three years ago, on Jan. 18, 2012, the Bulldogs were able to humble Trinity men’s team 5–4. The win ended Trinity’s 14-season undefeated streak that lasted an incredible 252 games.
The women’s team won matches at the Nos. 6 and 7 positions by captain Anne Harrison ’15 and Annie Ballaine ’16. Harrison won her match in three games, while Ballaine’s required five games. After falling behind 2–1, Ballaine was able to recover and won her match with decisive 11–4, 11–9 scores in the fourth and fifth.
“Trinity was a really tough match — it was fun, and although we lost 7–2, the score is not indicative of how we played,” Selena Maity ’18 said. “A few of the matches we lost were very close and could have gone either way. Trinity is a hard team to play, and they always have a lot of energy and support at their matches. They have some really strong players, but so do we, and they should watch out for us next time.”
This weekend the Bulldogs will travel south to face George Washington University (8–4 men, 5–5 women) and the Naval Academy (15–4).
While the Navy team has an impressive record, many of their wins come from much weaker teams; they are 0–2 against Ivy League teams.
The George Washington men and women are ranked 17th and eighth in the nation, respectively, and the Navy men are ranked 16th.
Given the lower rankings of its foes, the men’s team’s primary challenge is the locations of their two foes. At 10 a.m. the team will play George Washington in Washington D.C., and then travel to Annapolis, Maryland for a 3 p.m. match that same day.
“Playing on the road is always tough mentally,” Pierson Broadwater ’18 said. “It’s hard to play on courts that you’re not familiar with and living out of a hotel is different than your own house. That being said, we’re confident that we can bounce back from Wednesday’s match in good form.”