January 14th,
Brunswick, ME -
The inaugural Maine Invitational last weekend
saw a varied
mix of teams from California (Stanford), New York (Rochester),
Massachusetts (Williams), New Hampshire (Dartmouth) and naturally
the three Maine schools Bowdoin, Bates and Colby. All teams
are near each other in rankings, making it anybody's ball
game, which it definitely turned out to be.
Dartmouth took on the greatest challenge by playing
four teams within the three-day stretch. The weekend began
with a Friday evening match against Bates at the beautiful
new five court facility in Lewiston (the Dartmouth men and
women inaugurated the center exactly two years ago). Both
teams knew it would be a tough match. Interim Bates
head coach Marc Kannegieser had his boys primed for an upset
and were ready for battle. With two matches going to five
games and another to four it was certainly a confrontation
that could have gone either way. The Big Green came out on
top 7-2, winning all the close ones, but dropping a
3-0 match to No. 1 Ricky Weisskopf, and another
at No. 3 to talented freshman Kush Mahan.
"I think they were a little disappointed in their outcome
against Dartmouth," said Bates assistant coach, Wynn Holt. "They
came back with a renewed sense of energy the next day against
Williams and played really, really well." More on that
in a bit.
Simultaneously the Dartmouth women were doing
battle with a much improved Bates team. The Green a
match at No. 4 and had three tough five games wins at
5, 6 and 8 to finish with an 8-1 victory.
"It certainly was a good wake up call for our women," said
head coach John Power. "They now know that they wouldn't
be able to take any of these Maine schools for granted."
Another school who learned not to take the
Maine schools lightly Williams. In a major upset, the Bates
men defeated Williams 5-4 on Saturday. As it often happens,
the top of Bates' order won, but other players came through
as well. Bates' No. 5 Matt Marchisotto defeated Morgan Phillips
in a hard fought five game match, 5-9, 10-8, 5-9, 9-6,
9-4. And not to be outdone, the Bobcat's No. 6, Will Katz
dispersed of Bernard Yaros 9-7, 9-6, 9-4.
"We knew we had a strong top of the order," Holt said."The
Williams win really happened because the strength
of the middle of the lineup came through. Last year we consistently
won at 1-4. The middle of the lineup has given our team some
confidence about the parity within the team itself.
The pressure is off the top of the order a bit."
Dartmouth traveled to Waterville to play Colby was
on Saturday. The Big Green enjoyed the hospitality of the
Colgate team, but weren't quite as kind as they departed
with two 9-0 victories and headed south to Brunswick to
face Bowdoin. Two hours later the team was back on court
against the Polar Bears. This match wasn't quite
as easy. The Bowdoin women stole a match at the top
of the ladder, as Christie Alexander's knee gave out and
she had to default her match. The men were battling away
on adjacent courts and finished 9-0, but not before the
bottom six players were pushed either to four or five games.
These
three matches were just the prelude to the fireworks which
would happen Sunday morning between Dartmouth and Rochester.
The men were scheduled to go on at ungodly hour of 8:45 against
a much improved Rochester team. The upstate New York Yellow
Jackets came ready, after defeating Bates the evening
before. Rochester now boasts head coach Martin Heath, who
has retired from full-time competition where at his prime
reached as far as world number four, not
bad for someone from a small town in the north of Scotland.
With his international contacts he now boasts four world
class underclassmen from Finland, Canada and England. His
diverse group also includes players from Pakistan and Japan.
The day before, Rochester defeated Bates,
making things all the more confusing as Bates since Bates
had just defeated Williams. Bates is a much improved team.
"Our main strength is our top four," Heath said. "From
5-9 we aren't as strong. We are a top five team with our
top four players, but not our bottom five. We've never beat
Bates and it makes it all the more sweet since they defeated
Williams the night before."
"I think college squash is definitely becoming tighter," Heath
continued. "For teams ranked 3-12, you can't really say who
will win."
That statement held true in the nail biter
between Rochester and Dartmouth. As expected, Rochester's top four dominated,
not losing a game to Dartmouth. The real battle would come
at the back of the ladder where Dartmouth needed
wins at every position to secure victory. Dartmouth's Wagman,
Preefer, Young and Schroeder rolled through with only freshman
Preefer dropping his first game before claiming victory. That
left the No. 5 players on court to decide who would
go home with the win. Dartmouth's Michael Shrubb got
behind 2-0 to Yohay Wakabayaski. Shrubb, who had
scraped by in five the day before against Bowdoin, was visibly
tired and somewhat dejected but his courageous spirit seemed
to take over and change the momentum, as he stole the
next two games, 9-2, 9-4. Just one game was remaining
to decide his match and indeed the final outcome for the
full encounter.
Both boys were performing on just fumes
as they had been battling each other for close to an hour. Wakabayaski
took the early lead on great hustle and a few unforced
errors by the Dartmouth sophomore. He stood at 8-4 with match
ball and apparent victory at hand. "Shrubby" was not prepared
to give it to him without a fight and began his comeback.
It went back and forth several times with the Yellow Jacket No.
5 having at least four match balls. But it just wasn't
to be; Shrubb was playing his 10 th game in less than
15 hours and unbelievably found the guts and energy to pull
even and win in overtime 10-8. The noise around the Bowdoin
Squash Center was deafening and the elated Dartmouth team
was going home with four wins and presumably a place in the
league's top eight.
Dartmouth coaches Power and Weins wondered
if they could stand any more pressure and tension with the
women's team preparing
themselves to take on the sixth ranked Stanford Cardinals.
Again their opposition featured very strong players at the
top of the order. Former national intercollegiate champion
Lily Lorentzen at No. 1 and former US Junior Team
member Katy Brewster at the No. 2 spot. The rest of
the West Coast team had also been well prepared by US squash
legend Mark Talbott. Christie Alexander, still favoring
her injured knee, kept in close with Lorentzen for the first
game but just couldn't sustain the fast pace. Dartmouth senior,
Ashley Malenchak, surprised Brewster in the first game winning
9-4, but the speed and grittiness of the Brooklyn native
were too much, as she won the final three games 9-7, 9-6,
9-4.
The battle was on: The much improved Danielle
Fuschetti cruised at No. 9, as did freshman Hannah Conant.
Dartmouth's No. 6, Libbey Brown seemed nervous initially, dropping
the first game to senior Brooksie Riley 9-1. After coach
Weins helped calm down the Maryland native, she dominated
the remainder of the match 0, 2 and 6. Stanford pulled ahead
with wins over first year players Taylor Tully and Maura
Doherty playing in the seven/eight spots.
Dartmouth's mercurial Madeline Lurio at No. 4 was
again playing her up and down game. She dropped the first
to the very athletic Cecilia Haig 9-3, found her touch in
the next two, winning 9-1, 9-5, and went to sleep again losing
the fourth 9-3. Realizing the importance of her match and
responding to the support of her teammates she bore down
in the fifth, claiming it 9-5.
Like the men, the whole thing
came down to the final match on court. The aging Coach Power
no doubt was adding another 10 years very quickly. Rebecca
Loucks, captain and senior had to take on the diminutive
and highly ranked Samantha Buechner, Stanford's number three
player. It was a battle the whole way. The first three games
went to overtime with Loucks notching the final two.
One more game was required to secure victory for her and
the team. On a few untimely drop shot errors by Loucks the
match would go into the fifth.
The final game started and most
of the cheers were coming from the Dartmouth bench. Loucks was playing perfect
squash and roared to a 7-0 lead, two points away. The unflappable
Rhode Islander Buechner hit a couple of excellent dying
lengths, a perfect backhand drop and was now closing
the gap. The Dartmouth No. 3, now physically tired and beginning
to lose some confidence battled hard but it was now 7 all,
everything was resting on the final two points. Loucks
got the serve back, but couldn't capitalize. The advantage
went back to the Cardinal freshman who quickly closed out
the match.
"It was a good win for the girls. I'd say there is
a good chance we will be in the A bracket of the Howe cup," said
Stanford head Coach Mark Talbott. "With a match like we had,
all the kids were yelling and screaming. They are really
excited, thrilled. They feel it is part of history. We've
never had a road trip where we have won all three matches.
They have done really well."
It was a dejected Dartmouth team,
so close to causing the upset, but at the same knowing they
may meet Stanford at the end of year at Howe Cup and have
the chance to do battle again.
As the weekend in Maine concluded,
one thing was incredibly clear; you can no longer pick a
clear winner. From now on, squash fans have to wait for the
teams to literally battle it out for nine matches before
knowing who will come out on top.
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