Irene Jiang

The Yale men’s and women’s squash teams made it look easy on Tuesday night when they secured a pair of victories over Brown, maintaining their perfect records heading into the new year. But for the Bulldogs, two perfects records were not enough — Yale also earned two perfect wins.

Both the No. 4 women (2–0, 1–0 Ivy) and the No. 6 men (2–0, 1–0) swept the Bears 9–0, cruising to victory in their Ivy League season opener. The men defeated No. 16 Brown (2–1, 0–1) despite missing key contributors Liam McClintock ’17, captain Sam Fenwick ’16 and Thomas Kingshott ’18, while for the women, the match saw the return from injury of Jenny Scherl ’17, who won her match 3–2 at the top of the ladder.

“It’s a great feeling going into break having defeated Brown 9–0,” women’s player Jocelyn Lehman ’18 said. “It gives us more motivation to keep training hard during break and come back in the New Year a stronger team who will have a run at the Ivy title. It was our first Ivy match, and it was nice to win so decisively.”

Other than Scherl’s match and a 3–1 win for captain Annie Ballaine ’16 at No. 3, all of the Eli women’s matches were decided in just three games against Brown (1–2, 0–1).

For the men, the match told a similar story despite the absences of Kingshott, McClintock and Fenwick, the latter two of whom were injured. Playing a Brown squad that had come off wins against Bates and Stanford, the Bulldogs earned 3–0 wins in all matches between the No. 1 and 8 positions.

“It was really good to open our Ivy League schedule with a 9–0 win,” T.J. Dembinski ’17 said. “Brown was surprisingly deep and everyone had to perform well to win their match. The team is really pleased with our performance and start to the season.”

The Bulldogs hope to ride on the energy from their first Ivy wins heading into winter break, Jonathan Kovac ’19 said. While this was Yale’s first Ivy match of the 2015–16 seasons, it was also the last of the 2015 calendar year. Starting this Friday, the men and women’s teams begin a break and resume practice on Jan. 2.

Yale will have no grace period after the break, as it hosts Ivy foes Columbia and Cornell the weekend before classes resume. These matches will be among the most important of the season — the Columbia men and women rank No. 5 and No. 8, respectively, while Cornell’s men and women rank No. 12 and No. 7, respectively.

“I am really looking forward to training over break,” Dembinski said. “For us our season is dependent on how much the team trains over break. We come right back and play Columbia, which is one of our biggest matches. It’s imperative that everyone takes the break seriously and takes advantage of it.”

Shiyuan Mao ’17 noted that the team practice over break is an integral way for the Bulldogs to keep up their fitness and maintain momentum.

Yale’s men and women resume play on Jan. 9 against Columbia.

GRIFFIN SMILOW