Men's squash wins flight at nationals

Author: Kevin Carpenter

The Middlebury men's squash team ends its season as triumphant winners of the C-division at team nationals. The Panthers' finish earned the squad a 17th-place finish at Princeton.

In just its second season as a varsity sport at Middlebury, the team has accrued a respectable 15-10 record and is becoming a force to be reckoned with among historically strong varsity programs.

"Finishing 17th marks a major improvement from last year and from other years past," said co-captain Jack Lysohir '08.5. "The highest we had ever finished was 24th (which is the rank of the last placed team in the C-division), so it felt good to actually win the whole division."

The Panther team entered the tournament seeded 20th and competed in the Summers Division (C) bracket. The squad asserted their dominance over #21 Denison in Friday's match with a 7-2 victory. After the win, the Panthers encountered some familiar foes from NESCAC play.

"We came into the tournament seeded below Colby, Hamilton and Bowdoin, despite having beaten two of those teams in the regular season," said Lysohir. "We knew at nationals it would be imperative for us to focus only on each individual match and not get too concerned with how the rest of the draw was playing out and the implications of other teams' wins and losses."

With unwavering focus, the Panthers took on a tough Colby team, ranked #17 at the time of the match. Middlebury had met the Mules twice earlier in the season and pulled out two wins with blowout scores of 8-1 and 7-2, respectively. The Panther players knew, however, that Colby would not roll over lightly in such a competitive arena. The men came through with a 7-2 victory and proceeded to the finals on Sunday against Bowdoin, another formidable foe.

The Bowdoin Polar Bears had proved an insurmountable obstacle throughout the season. The Panthers dropped two matches to the team, both by a narrow 5-4 margin.

"Bowdoin is definitely a major rival; we lost to them twice this season and our girls' team lost to them three times," said Lysohir. "We knew this was our shot to take them down. They were tired from a nail-biter with Tufts the night before. Conditions were perfect."

#18 Bowdoin was determined to pull out a third win but they were met by seasoned Middlebury players eager to avenge past losses. Ultimately, the Panthers edged Bowdoin and came away with a 5-4 win.

"Simon Keyes '10 stepped up and had a big win at #8 to help us take down Bowdoin," said Lysohir. "Dependably strong performances by co-captain JP Sardi '09, Valentine Quan-Miranda '12, Brian Cady '11 and Eliot Jia '10 helped give us four other solid wins."

The C-flight win solidified Middlebury's #17 rank to cap off the season. In addition to the win, the squad was the recipient of the Team Sportsmanship Award.

"The team sportsmanship award is something we're very happy about," said Lysohir. "Squash is full of cumbersome rules and etiquette and it's quite easy for let/stroke calls and arguments to get out of hand. I am proud of the whole team for conducting themselves, both in play and in refereeing, so nicely and so respectfully. Sportsmanship is one of the few things we can have a lot of control over, so it is good to know that we're doing a good job. It's also great to be recognized by our peers in this regard, I hope the team is known for its sportsmanship for years to come."

The Team Sportsmanship Award is a well-deserved honor to cap off a successful season. Despite this success, the team is still looking forward to hopefully being placed in the B-flight next year after a win at nationals.

"We're really glad to have peaked this year at nationals," said Lysohir. "The squash season can be long and some teams suffer from burnout; fortunately our whole ladder was injury-free, mentally sound and playing good squash this weekend."