The Bowdoin Squash Teams have played hard and met mixed success throughout the past two weeks. Both the men and the women spent the first week of January in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, training both by drilling on the squash courts and by conditioning on the beach.
Upon returning to Brunswick on January 8, the teams began double sessions of training at Bowdoin in preparation for a dense period of competition.
On January 10 and 11, both teams headed to Yale for a tough round robin, competing against Cornell, Rochester, and Yale for the men, and Cornell, Stanford, and Yale for the women. Although both teams emerged winless from the weekend, the Polar Bears gained experience that would serve them well in matches to come by playing against top-level players.
The next weekend saw the Polar Bears return to Yale for another round robin, this time competing against teams nationally ranked near Bowdoin?the weekend presented many crucial matches for both teams. The women posted an impressive record of 4 wins and 1 loss on the weekend, defeating Vassar, Middlebury, Hamilton, and Amherst, and getting edged out by Mt. Holyoke by a score of 7-2.
The men attempted to stay in the B-division of national ranking, competing against teams that finished last year ranked worse than Bowdoin, but presented a challenge due to the men's injury-ridden ladder.
The men began the weekend by dispatching USC easily by a score of 8-1, a victory that gave first years Brian Gladstone and Ryan Erskine their first wins at Bowdoin, Erskine's by a dominating score of 9-0, 9-0, 9-0.
The men's next couple of matches, against Middlebury and Hamilton, were both battles that they managed to win, by scores of 5-4 and 6-3, respectively. The middle of the lineup, featuring juniors Arun Makhija and Thai Ha-Ngoc and senior Robbie Lynn was vital in both victories, while junior Peter Cipriano supplied consistent leadership in the number 3 spot.
The men's team suffered from the heavy weekend of matches, and their losses to Franklin and Marshall and St. Lawrence late on Saturday and early Sunday were partly due to injuries that crippled the Polar Bears' lineup.
This past week, the men battled Colby on Wednesday and Bates on Thursday. The Polar Bears managed to keep their unbeaten streak against Colby alive by securing a 5-4 victory against the Mules. Wins on the ladder came from Lynn at No. 6, Ha-Ngoc at No. 5, Rahul Madan-Mohan at No. 4, and Andy Bernard at No. 2.
The men also battled Bates on Thursday night, playing hard with a crippled lineup, but eventually falling to the Bobcats by a score of 9-0. "We battled hard but injuries really played their part tonight," said Makhija. "It's tough because they're such big rivals, but we hope to meet them again when we're at full strength." On Saturday, both the men and the women will head to Brown to play what should be tough battles.