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Volume CXXXII, Number 17 |
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Squash finishes 15th in nation
ALLIE YANIKOSKI
STAFF WRITER
The men's squash team finished its season at nationals last weekend as the fifteenth best team in America, beating Navy 6-3 in the final round of the Hoehn, B-level Division.
After narrow 5-4 losses to Amherst and Denison in the preliminary rounds of the tournament, the Bowdoin men returned to defeat Navy 6-3 in the finals.
"The fact that the team came back to beat Navy is a big accomplishment, especially since we lost to them the past two years," said coach Tomas Fortson.
"Finishing off the season with a win against Navy was excellent," agreed senior co-captain George Hubbard. "It's been awhile since we've beat them, so I was excited with our level of play and the results. It was a real mental victory for the team to pull a tough match out after two disappointing losses."
Although Bowdoin's top three players-juniors Greg Clement and Lawrence Delasotta, and sophomore Jon Crowell-lost their matches, first-years Doug Weeden and Bruce Saltzman, sophomores Eric Toan and Chris Metcalf, junior Grant White, and Hubbard all won their matches in the fourth through ninth positions, respectively.
"Saltzman played very well in winning his three matches [against Amherst, Denison, and Navy], including the clincher versus Navy," said Fortson. "White also went undefeated, as did Hubbard. Weeden won two out of three matches, including a big win versus Amherst."
Clement, Saltzman, and junior Mike Fensterstock joined Weeden to win their matches over Amherst in the first round of the tournament last Friday; however, Bowdoin lost 5-4 overall in an extremely close team match against the Lord Jeffs.
"A few of [the] matches went into five games and should have been taken by us easily!" said Saltzman. "But when it came down to the end, we lost by only a few points. We know that we could have and should have beaten Amherst."
After Amherst, the men continued on to play Denison, against whom they again suffered a tight 5-4 loss. Saltzman, Metcalf, White, and Hubbard all beat their Denison opponents. "We had beaten Denison 8-1 earlier in the season, but we couldn't capitalize this go-round," said Hubbard.
"Throughout the year, we lost more than our share of 5-4 matches," said Fortson. "Hopefully we will learn from those defeats and take the steps to the next level."
"Our team results are not reflective of our potential," said Saltzman. "We worked extremely hard this season, and it is a shame that we couldn't have proven so in the nationals, but we know we will be back next year ready to win."
Fortson said that "the B Division was very evenly matched, and we had the level of play to win it. I think we will learn from the experience and challenge again for the B trophy next year. We may have had our best chance ever to win, [but] at the same time, other teams also improved enough to have the six through eight teams in position to win that division."
"This season was bittersweet, where we had the most skill and potential that the Bowdoin squash team has ever seen, but [we] had a tough time achieving our potential during matches," said Hubbard.
Ending their team season with an 8-10 overall record, the men send Clement, their top player, to the Individual National Championships at Trinity this weekend. Currently ranked the forty-sixth best player nationwide, Clement will represent the Bowdoin Men's Squash Team against some tough competition.
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