SQUASH: Men’s and women’s squash kick-off season play against UVA
This Sunday, both the men’s and women’s squash teams played UVA to begin regular season play in Charlottesville, VA.
Yale Athletics
This weekend, the men’s (1–0, 0–0 Ivy) and women’s (0–1, 0–0 Ivy) squash teams kicked off the season with matches against the University of Virginia (1–1, 0–0 MASC) in Charlottesville, Va. The matches began regular season play for both teams.
The men’s team started slow against the Hoos, falling behind 0–2 in the morning, but they were able to quickly reverse the outcome, coming back strong to finish the day 7–2.
Tad Carney ’26, playing number one for the Bulldogs, had a strong performance against UVA’s Karim Elbarbary, scraping a 3–2 win.
“I really want to play to my full potential this year by staying at the number one spot on our ladder and winning matches for Yale,” Carney said when asked about his individual goals for the season. “This past weekend at UVA was a great start — I want to continue on that trajectory and try to learn as much as I can from that win moving forward.”
There were many tight matches on Sunday for the men, with both Jack O’Flynn ’27 and Rohan Gondi ’28 also battling to beat their opponents 3–2 to turn the competition in favor of the Bulldogs.
On Sunday, the women also began match play but couldn’t scrape the wins they hoped for, ultimately falling 8–1 to the sixth-ranked Hoos.
Sixth seed Whitney Taylor ’26 was able to fight for the only Bulldog win, beating her opponent 3–2.
“The toughest part about this weekend of competition was playing in front of their home crowd, especially after the long days of travel,” women’s captain Nina Mital ’25 said. “Many of the close matches did not end up going our way.”
As the Bulldogs head into the regular season, the men’s team is ranked second nationally, and the women’s team is slotted at seventh.
“The final result was 7–2, but that doesn’t really capture how tight this match was. We started down 1–2, and I am proud of how we responded as a team,” men’s captain Maxwell Orr ’25 said about the men’s team’s overall performance this weekend. “That first wave of three matches consisted of the three seniors in the lineup, so for the rest of the team to clean up our rough start and go 6–0 led by four underclassmen reflected great maturity and composure in a challenging setting.”
Looking ahead, the women play Georgetown University (0–2, 0–0 NCAA Big East) on Saturday, Dec. 7, in Washington, DC, and Drexel University (4–1, 0–0 MASC) on Sunday, Dec. 8.
The men play Drexel University (4–1, 0–0 MASC) in Philadelphia, Pa. on Dec. 8, their last match before the new year.