Men’s squash earns best finish to date in NESCAC tournament

Last weekend the men’s squash team traveled to Trinity College to compete in the NESCAC tournament. The Panthers were ranked 15th going into the weekend, sliding two spots from the previous week in which they lost three of four matches to tough teams on the road.

Facing 18th-ranked rival Amherst in their quarterfinal match, the Panthers easily dismantled the Lord Jeffs in convicing fashion, winning by a score of 8-1. Middlebury’s first through eighth slotted players all took down their challengers, with only ninth-slotted rookie Chris Ivsin ’14 falling to his Amherst opponent.

Following a decisive first win, the team had little rest before facing Trinity College later in the day in the semifinals of the tournament.

Unfortunately for the Panthers, they were not as successful against top-ranked Trinity as they were earlier in the day. The result was a mirror image of that of the Amherst match– 8-1, but in the opposite direction, with Ivsin, again playing in the ninth slot, the only victorious Panther in the match.

While the first-ranked Bantams continued on to win their fifth straight NESCAC championship, sweeping Williams 9-0, Middlebury faced 14th-ranked Bates in the consolation match, playing for third place in the tournament.

Fresh from a day of much needed rest, the Panthers easily defeated the Bobcats by a score of 6-3. Playing in the number one, two, and three slots respectively, Valentin Quan ’12, Jay Dolan ’13, and rookie Parker Hurst ’14 all outplayed their Bobcat opponents, tallying three of the Panthers six wins in the match.

Fourth-slotted co-Captain Brian Cady ’11 and sixth-slotted rookie Will Moore ’14 were less lucky, but Spencer Hurst ’13, playing in the fifth slot, matched his younger brother’s success and notched another win for the team.

Cooper Redpath ’14, another rookie on the team, and Addi DiSesa ’12, Cady’s co-captain, played their way to victory in the seventh and eighth slots respectively, while Ivsin again reversed his result from the previous match, losing in the ninth slot.

While Quan, DiSesa, Dolan, the Hurst brothers, and Redpath played well, all going 2-1 on the weekend, it was not enough to win the Panthers the championship.

However, it was good enough for a third place finish, the highest for the Panthers in the tournament’s five-year existence. They have one more week of tough competition with little rest, playing five matches next weekend, before rounding out the season at Harvard then Dartmouth, competing in Team then Individual Nationals.