Big Green Squash Gets By Cornell

Saturday, January 26

Hanover, N.H.

1:00 PM / 4:30 PM

Dartmouth College

CORNELL

1/28/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Squash

By: Dartmouth

January 27, 2008

Dartmouth men's and women's squash teams hosted Ivy rival Cornell, January 27 and came away with two very hard-fought, 7-2, victories. The score was no indication of the very close battles that were waged on the Berry Center courts, a match that took well over three hours to compete.

The women got off to a great start in the first round of matches as Elizabeth Wientraub, Libbey Brown and Becca Loucks secured wins. Though Libbey ran through veteran Mairn Barnes at position #6, captain Loucks and sophomore Weintraub were pushed to the limit at #3 and #9 respectively. Becca erased the demons of her close losses to Stanford and Williams and came through 10-9 in the fifth game. Elizabeth seemed to have things in hand with a 2-0 lead but her Big Red opponent, Alix Watson, tightened her game and took the third. The Dartmouth walk-on showed her grittiness and pushed through 9-4 in the fourth stanza.

The second round started with a bang as #5 first-year Hannah Conant steam- rolled Ottawa native Annie Ritter 9-0, 9-4, 9-7. Four love and things were looking good. Then it appeared that the roof might fall in as senior Christie Alexander had to default after being up 2-1 as a result of an injury to her knee. Madeline Lurio at the #4 spot fought long and hard against another Canadian trained player, Alex Cornett, but came out on the short end 3-2. It was now 4-2 and rookie Maura Doherty, looking to be in full command with 9-3, 10-8 wins dropped the next two and things were getting tense. Fortunately the Brooklyn belle took the decider 9-4 and the team win was secured. Taylor Tully, #7 and #1 Ashley Malenchak were definitely in top form as they won convincingly to give our women the 7-2 victory.

The men's team is in a very interesting fight to be selected to the A bracket for the National Championships. At the beginning of the season there were approximately 16 teams with legitimate shots at the eight positions. Trinity College (undefeated in 8 seasons), Princeton, Harvard and Yale are a lock for the top four slots but what an interesting state of affairs for Brown, Cornell, Penn, Williams, Western Ontario, Rochester, Bates, Bowdoin, Navy and ourselves. There have been several results that have gone against the pre-season rankings but without question the Big Green has been the most consistent with very close wins over Navy, Rochester, Bates, Williams and now Cornell. Bowdoin didn't put up too much resistance, but victories on the remaining two weekends over Brown and Penn will certainly garner the enviable 5th place on the 50 team totem pole.

Again the 7-2 win over arch rival Cornell really could have gone either way. The first set of matches got us off to a great start, but it was tough. Rookie Ted Schroeder, who is improving every match, was convincing in his 3-1 victory at #9. Dan Wagman, number six on the ladder battled back from 2-1 down and wore out Amar Gupta taking the final two 9-3 and 9-2. The highlight of the day was to watch senior captain Adam King come back from the depths of despair and knock off highly toted freshman Will Hartigan 3-2. Will dominated Adam 9-1 and 9-5 in the first two, but then after some positive words from coach Hansi Wiens, Adam found his stride and won the next two 9-3 and 9-6. The young Hartigan from down the road in Concord (he received most of early training here in Hanover with Dartmouth coaches) was now physically and mentally depleted; Adam ran off the final game without giving up a point.

The next round secured victory for the Big Green. Two sport athlete Ted Newhouse displayed a high level of speed and power to knock off yet another Canadian, Steve Peefer, 10-8, 9-2, 9-2. Michael Shrubb was not in his normally giant killing form and went down 3-1. But again it was the Brooklyn Heights freshman Stephen Preefer who was causing great concern to coaches Power and Wiens. Stephen was down 2-1 and indeed was not playing his best squash. But he came out in the fourth with a positive attitude and fewer errors and quickly erased the lead of Cornell #8, winning 9-6 and 9-2 in final two stanzas. The victory was now in the books. Mike Lewis and Tyler Young gave us the next two W's, while Andrew Boumford, the very talented junior from Winnipeg, playing some of his best squash couldn't quite come up with the goods as potential first team All-American Chris Sachvie won in a very tough four game battle.

They were two very satisfying wins for the Big Green as they move into the final weeks of their season.

While the women showered and went to dinner the men, utilizing the talents of Ben Gettinger, Ben Mandel and Samir Mehta at positions 7,8 and 9, resting Boumford, King and Preefer, were able to hold off Hobart, another NY team making the Massachusetts, New Hampshire swing. The match and the day ended 9-0 and everyone looked forward to the day off before preparing for Brown this weekend.