The women's squash team entered the 2014 spring campaign with high hopes after a promising fall season. Although the team secured solid wins in the NESCAC, it was unable to achieve its larger goals, as it failed to win its division at the College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championships.
Overall, the team progressed individually and as a unit. But the most important growth was in its camaraderie, junior co-captain Ann Bellinger said.
"It was about so much more than just winning," Bellinger said. "We really bonded as a team. We started with four returning players [from] a roster of 14 and stepped up and moved up seven [spots in the] rankings."
The biggest moments of the Jumbos' season came in NESCAC play. The first NESCAC competition of the season was against Colby on Jan. 25 in New Haven, Conn., where the Jumbos fell to the White Mules, 6-3. The match was close, as five of the nine games needed more than the minimum three games to determine the victor.
Junior Paige Dahlman began her dominant season with a four-game win over Colby sophomore Mikaela Johnson by scores of 15-13, 9-11, 11-2, 11-7. The Jumbos then battled Connecticut College later that day and emerged victorious by a match score of 5-4.
"I was really impressed with a lot of the younger members of the team," said Caroline Howe, the team's only senior. "We have a lot of freshmen and a lot of sophomores, and I thought that they did such a good job of stepping up. [This season] was a really great part of my senior year."
After a mid-week win over Boston College on Jan. 29, Tufts entered the NESCAC tournament as the No. 10 seed slated to face seventh-seeded Bowdoin College in the first round. Even though the Jumbos fell to the Polar Bears by a match score of 9-0, many of the games went down to the wire.
The performance gave Tufts momentum heading into its consolation match against Conn. College. The Jumbos beat the Camels for the second time this season, this time by a match score of 7-2.
Sophomore Paget Stanco won her match in the No. 1 position in three games; Dahlman won in the No. 2 position in four games; and Bellinger won in the No. 3 position in three games. In the No. 5 position, freshman Lynn Cheng won her match in four games, winning three straight after dropping the first game to her Conn. College counterpart. In the No. 6 position, Howe also won in four games.
Tufts came in 10th place out of 11 teams in the NESCAC championships after losing its third match against Colby College. Despite the result, team members said they continued to believe in themselves.
Before Nationals occurred, three players competed in the Div. III Individual Championships: Dahlman, Stanco and Bellinger. The lone bright spot for the Jumbos was Dahlman, who won the B division with four straight victories to win the draw.
On the Feb. 21 weekend, Tufts competed in the CSA Team Championships in Princeton, N.J., in the D division of the tournament. Tufts won two of its three matches. Winning its last match of the tournament in the consolation round against William Smith College on Feb. 23 gave Tufts the third spot in its division and the No. 27 seed nationally.
The lone loss for Tufts at the championships came at the hands of University of Virginia. The Cavaliers were a team that the Jumbos had never seen before and were unfamiliar with, which led to an adjustment period the team was unable to overcome.
"So much emphasis had been put on winning the whole weekend and when we lost on Saturday everyone was really upset," Bellinger said. "We all stood by each other as a team and realized that we win as a team and we lose as a team."
The last competition for Tufts was the CSA Individual Championships, in which only its top player, Stanco, participated. Against top competition, however, Stanco lost her first two matches and was eliminated from the tournament.
Despite the highs and lows of the year, the team saw the season as a success.
"I think the biggest improvement that I saw was in people's attitudes," Bellinger said. "By the end of the season, everybody was playing for each other and they wanted to be there. There is a big difference between coming out to practice and matches and playing squash and coming out and having that support network. That is what takes a team from one level to the next level."
