Women's squash falls in national C Division finals

The Jumbos put out a strong showing in the C Division of the College Squash Association (CSA) national championship, also known as the Walker Cup, finishing second to NESCAC rival Bates. Tufts lost 6–3 to a strong Bates team in the finals, after beating that same side 6–3 in the regular season and 5–4 in the NESCAC fifth place game.The Jumbos fell to the Bobcats last year in the semifinal C Division by the same 7–2 result. While Tufts lost all three matches to Bates in the 2017–2018 season, the team finished this regular season with a 2–1 advantage over its NESCAC rivals.

Tufts faced eighth-seeded St. Lawrence in the national quarterfinal, wasting no time with a convincing 9–0 thrashing. Tufts didn’t drop a single game in the match and advanced to the semifinals to face Franklin & Marshall College. The two sides were supposed to square off during the regular season but the match was cancelled, meaning many of the team’s newer players had never faced their opponents before.

“I told the girls you have to feel it out in the first game," coach Joe Raho said. “You have to be smart about where you put the ball, but you’re also figuring it out on the fly.”

Juniors Ellen Verry and Katherine Galambos of Franklin & Marshall logged victories at the first and third positions, respectively, but Tufts was victorious in the rest of the matches. Sophomore Rachel Windreich of Greenwich, Conn. earned a hard-fought, five-game victory in a back-and-forth contest at the sixth position. Windreich won the first two games handily at 11–4, and rallied back to win the fifth game 13–11 after dropping games three and four. Sophomore Julie Yeung and first-year Diya Sanghi both earned four game wins, while the rest of the team won their matches with relative ease in three game contests.

After finally getting over the semifinal hump in the C Division, the Jumbos once again found themselves face-to-face with the Bobcats. While Tufts kept their lineup the same from the two teams’ previous match-ups this season, Bates made two changes by moving sophomore Maeve O’Brien and senior Molly Brooks up one spot into the fourth and seventh positions, respectively. 

Senior Zarena Jafry won her match at the fourth position against an unfamiliar opponent, finessing a five-game victory capped off by a strong 11–2 fifth game. Sanghi also won her match against a new opponent, handling Brooks in three games. Sophomore Chloe Kantor was one of three Jumbos who was victorious in all three of their matches at CSAs, along with Sanghi and Jafry.

“I wanted to focus on nothing but the first five points, and make sure that I started off strong,” Kantor said, reflecting on her finals match versus yet another unfamiliar opponent in Bates’ first-year Natalie Bachman. "Zarena won a huge match against Maeve, who’s a really tough opponent, and Catherine [Shanahan] and Rachel both lost matches that really could have gone either way.”

Windreich has made five-game marathons her trademark. However, she fell to first-year Natasha Jones of Bates (5–11, 9–11, 14–12, 12–10, 11–9). Matches that go the distance, just like this sixth position battle, are often tightly contested in each game, which makes fatigue and focus a major factor in the final game. 

“When I go into the fifth game, I know I’m going to leave it all out on the court,” Windreich said. “With it being the last game of the match, whether I win or lose, I want to walk away exhausted and knowing I did everything I could have done.”

Junior co-captain Claire Davidson fell in four games at the first position, losing to Bates’ junior Luca Polgar. The two top players had back-and-forth matches all year, just like the rest of the lineups of both teams. In such an evenly matched contest, it often comes down to which players bring their A-game on the day. Even with the lineup changes that Bates made, Raho acknowledged that the match was decided based on who was most ready to play.

“It wasn’t a matchup thing, we just didn’t play as well as we were capable of," Raho said. "But that’s sports. You have to be on your game against your toughest opponents.”

Despite this painful loss, there’s much to look forward to for this up and coming squad. While Raho and the team hope to keep improving on a day-to-day basis in the offseason, the B Division of the national championships and rising into the NESCAC top four remain closer than ever.

“Next year we’ll definitely look to be in the B draw," Kantor said. "I’m confident we can do it."

Kantor will continue to be a strong contributor to this very deep squad. With a promising recruiting class set to arrive next year, the Jumbos will look to keep improving.

In other tournament news, Harvard University took the crown in the A draw, while fellow Ivy League powerhouse Cornell captured the B draw. Williams, Amherst and Middlebury all fell in the first round of the competitive B draw.