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Volume CXXXII, Number 16 |
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Squash captures Kurtz Cup
ALLIE YANIKOSKI
STAFF WRITER
The other seven teams never had a chance. The Bowdoin Women's Squash Team entered the Kurtz Cup National Tournament last Friday with confidence, and left on Sunday with the Kurtz Cup itself, as Division B national champions and the ninth-best collegiate team across all divisions.
"We went into the tournament intending to win, but aware that we'd have to play very well in order to do so," said senior co-captain Lindy Stanley. "We were ranked at the top of our division, and so we were considered the team to beat."
Furthermore, the Bears had already beaten every team in the Kurtz Cup except for Cornell, who they did not compete against this season. "These previous wins, coupled with our improvement during the season, made the title attainable," said junior Eileen Schneider.
Bowdoin claimed the Kurtz Cup title after successively beating Middlebury 9-0, Colby 6-3, and Bates 5-4.
Niki Clement '06, Merrill Muckerman '03, and Katie Irving '04 led Bowdoin in the top three positions, winning their matches against Bates in the finals. Stanley, Schneider, Melissa Miness '04, and Margaret Fuller '06 lost at the number four, six, seven, and nine positions, respectively.
"[Schneider] had an awesome match at the number six spot," said Stanley. "She lost the first two games, but rallied on in the third and fourth. The fifth game ended in an unbelievable tie-breaker. She fought until the very end and demonstrated a great deal of determination and character."
Seniors Whitney Hodgkins and Rachel Rones also showed great determination, defeating their opponents at the fifth and eighth positions and thus helping to nab the national title.
"Rones came through with her best performance ever for the team, winning 3-0," said coach Tomas Fortson. "With four victories on our side, we felt confident of a positive outcome knowing that our senior co-captains were still to play. Hodgkins found her game just in time to win the clinching match for us. [She] ends her collegiate career with a perfect 12-0 record at nationals."
Clinching their national victory, Bowdoin defeated both Bates and Colby in the semifinals for the third time this season, which is "something very hard to do to against a quality opponent," said Fortson.
"Our win versus Colby was scary because of their strength at the seven through nine positions," added Fortson. "Irving and Schneider came through for us with clutch wins. Fuller played her best match to date [losing to] a very strong Colby player. Clement, Muckerman, Stanley, and Hodgkins dominated their opponents."
"A remarkable feat was Muckerman's tournament play, where she barely logged an hour on court all weekend," said Schneider. "[She] beat her opponents so quickly, I doubt if she ever broke a sweat."
The women's squash team made dominating their competition look easy, finishing with a 19-5 season record.
"Our team was able to accomplish so much this year [and] matched the best finish ever for a Bowdoin squash team, [because] they embraced each other as a team from the beginning and solidified their bond throughout the season," said Fortson.
"They truly enjoyed each other and they were all very hungry to learn and improve. It would be very hard for a coach to ask for anything more than what this team was-on all fronts."
However, the season has not ended for everyone. Next weekend, Clement and Muckerman will compete in the Ramsey section of the Individual Nationals, as members of the top 32 collegiate squash players nationwide.
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