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Volume CXXXII, Number 10 |
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Polar Bears rearing to squash NESCAC
ALLIE YANIKOSKI
STAFF WRITER
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| First-year Nick Adams winds up for a backhand. (Hans Law, Bowdoin Orient) |
The Division I Bowdoin Men's Squash Team demonstrated its power last season, boasting a 10-8 record along with two of the top 50 players in the United States-junior co-captain Greg Clement and sophomore Jon Crowell. The upcoming season promises to be equally, if not more, impressive than the last.
"We're a young team with a lot of experience," said Clement. "Seven of the top nine from last year were sophomores and freshmen. Overall, I would say that this year's team is as strong, if not stronger than, last year's team."
Although the Polar Bears graduated Tom Costin and Drew Homan, two valuable players, co-captain George Hubbard '03 feels that "this year's team has a lot of promise, possibly the most ever."
Coach Tomas Fortson, in his third season at Bowdoin, said, "While we are clearly a stronger team than last year based on the development of last year's players, it is hard to predict how we'll fare. Other teams around our level-[roughly] tenth to seventeenth in the country-have also gotten better, and we'll play the majority of them."
Fortson focuses specifically on teams like Denison, Williams, Dartmouth, and Brown, against whom the Bears usually face the greatest opposition.
"[These teams] may not be as strong as last year, and we may have a real chance to upset them," said Fortson. "So we'll have over ten matches that could go either way, [which] certainly makes for an exciting season."
This season, Fortson looks for each team member "to improve consistently throughout the season as a player, person, and teammate, and for each to learn to perform to his potential under pressure."
"We have good people who like each other, work hard, want to learn, and play intelligently," said Fortson. "We have very good depth."
Hubbard added, "We have several freshmen who are all playing very well, and will certainly play a large role in the lineup. As of right now, many of the upperclassmen are playing their best squash to date. All in all this could be our best season ever."
In the 2002-2003 season, the Bears gained six new players, including first-years Charles Saltzman, Doug Weeden, Evan Fensterstock, Bryant Rich, Nick Adams, and sophomore Chris Metcalf.
The Bears storm into their thirty-sixth competitive season today at Dartmouth College.
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