Panthers go 2-2 at Wesleyan

Author: Michael McCormick

The Middlebury women's squash team got its season off to a luke-warm start this past weekend with two wins and two losses at the Wesleyan Round Robin Invitational. On Friday, Dec. 2, the Panthers played their first competition of the season against Bates, the ninth-ranked team in the country. The Panthers lost all nine of their matches against the Bobcats in a contest that Middlebury knew would be a tough one.

The Panthers recovered to beat Stanford later that day, however, with a 6-3 win. Caroline Woodworth '09, Avery Tilney '09, Katie Hawkins '06, Ellie Buechner '08, Caitlin Flint '06 and Kara Zarchin '06 all won their matches against Stanford.

On Saturday, Dec. 3, the Panthers started the day with another tough match, this time against Bowdoin. The Panthers were again winless against the Polar Bears, another tough team but the Panthers refused to dwell on this loss.

"Bates and Bowdoin were ranked a lot higher than us," said Buechner, "so we were sort of expected to not do as well against them."

The Panthers bounced back against Hamilton and dominated the Continentals 9-0. Woodworth, Tilney, Hawkins, Buechner, Flint, and Zarchin all had wins again, as did Sally Hatfield '09, the Panthers' top player, Schuyler Winstead '06 and Channing Weymouth '06.

Even though the Panthers suffered two fairly overwhelming losses in the tournament, they were still satisfied with how they performed overall. "I think it went pretty well," said Buechner. "Everybody played really well, and it reflected how hard we've worked this year and how we've improved our squash abilities."

The Panthers are looking to continue this hard work throughout the rest of the season and maintain the levels of improvement that they've seen thus far. "We mostly want to keep working hard and work on getting back in it," said Hawkins. "It's still the beginning of the season." The rest of the season looks as though it should be a good one, even though the team lost several seniors last year.

"We've got three new first-years (Hatfield, Woodworth, and Tilney) who are playing one-two-three on the ladder," said Hawkins, "and we're really looking a lot deeper this year.

With no competitions until J-Term, the Panthers are looking to keep doing what they have been so far this season and working as hard as they can. This includes working on court movement, shot placement, and accuracy in the coming weeks to get ready for the heart of their season. The Panthers travel to Amherst next for the Amherst Invitational, Jan. 13-15.