The Naval Academy Squash Team must have thought it had an easy win coming its way when it faced Bowdoin, resting its No. 1 player for the match. The Polar Bears, who had dropped a tough loss last year to Navy, refused to leave so quietly.
Instead, on Friday evening, the Bears took the Navy team by storm with a decisive 6-3 victory at the Yale squash courts. The first two hours of play left the teams fairly even. Bowdoin sophomores Peter Cipriano, Arun Makhija, and Thai Ha-Ngoc had scored wins for Bowdoin at the No. 5, 6, and 9 ladder spots, while co-captain Jake Sack '08 and David Funk '10 lost their No. 2 and 3 matches, each in four games.
Bowdoin led 3-2 at the time of junior Robert Lynn's match. A crowd of Bowdoin parents, members of the women's team, and fellow teammates leaned over the observation deck, standing on chairs, leaning on shoulders, to watch Lynn and his opponent battle on court. Each player dove for balls that nicked or rolled, extending each point and exhausting each other.
Lynn reached eight points after about 20 minutes of play in the final game. The audience hushed as he served for the match, but his opponent refused to allow him the match at the time. Navy regained the serve and won three more points to tie the game at 8-8. Lynn chose to play to ten points, and won back his serve at eight all. He won the next point and again served for the match, but again Navy reclaimed serve and tied the score at 9-9. Lynn again regained the serve and won the final point, giving Bowdoin a fourth team win.
Only minutes later, Andy Bernard '11 defeated his opponent in three games, cinching a team win for Bowdoin. Senior co-captain Ray Carta followed suit with the sixth individual match win for the Polar Bears.
"Everyone on the team really stepped it up when it mattered most this weekend," said Sack. "The win showcased our depth and resiliency, and that allowed us to beat a top ten team." The Naval Academy squash team is currently ranked No. 10 in the nation, while Bowdoin is, for the moment, ranked No. 13.
The Bowdoin men enjoyed three more wins at Yale over Denison, Franklin & Marshall, and Hobart. On Sunday, they fell to top-ranked teams Yale and University of Pennsylvania. They also swept Colby earlier in January and lost to Rochester, Dartmouth, and Williams.
"We hope we can use the momentum of our wins to carry us into the NESCAC tournament and then onto nationals," said Sack.
The women opened the weekend at Yale with decisive wins over Vassar (8-1), Connecticut College (9-0), and Middlebury (8-1). They faced stronger competition from Mt. Holyoke on Saturday night. Like the men's face-off with Navy, the women had split results after two rounds of play. Mt. Holyoke took two of the first round matches, defeating Elena Laird '11 and Katie Cushing '10 at Nos. 3 and 9, while junior Jackie Deysher won the No. 6 position in four games.
In the second round, junior Alex Franceschi scored another four-game win, at No. 5, and senior co-captain Sarah Podmaniczky secured a win in five games at the No. 8 position. Fellow senior co-captain Emilie McKenna won her first game against Mt. Holyoke No. 2, but lost the match in four games.
Junior Biz Gillespie allowed her opponent only four points in the No. 7 match up, quickly bringing Bowdoin's win tally to four, but Mt. Holyoke answered with a three game win at No. 1, again tying the team match score. The No. 4 face-off became the deciding match, and junior Kate Gormley, down one game to two, delivered a 9-7 win in the fourth game to force a fifth game, though she eventually fell 9-3 in the final game.
"The women's team really stepped up this weekend," said Deysher. "I think everyone's performance predicts a really strong finish to our season, especially against rival teams like Bates."
Both the men and women hope for wins this weekend on their home courts. The men play Brown University at 12 p.m. Saturday, followed by the women, facing No. 9 Brown's women at 2:30 p.m. On Sunday, both teams will battle St. Lawrence at 10 a.m. and George Washington University at 12:15 p.m.