Not many squads are ranked ahead of the men’s and women’s squash teams — just 17 to be exact. Four of these teams, however, will be in town this weekend to take on the Red.
After stating early in the season that their goal was to maintain their No. 9 ranking, the men have done enough to sit pat in that spot, beating Colby and Bowdoin this past weekend. This weekend, however, a fifth-ranked Yale squad and No. 8 Williams team will challenge the Red, looking to maintain their own rankings.
“It’s going to be a tough one,” said senior co-captain Ted Hill. “Yale is one of the best and Williams is ahead of us. I think we need to make sure everyone is totally prepared for the matches. That includes physical and mental preparation.”
Despite playing a long string of high seeds, including No. 1 Trinity — undefeated since 1999 — the Red has over a month of home matches. This stretch leads up to nationals, for which the Red remains optimistic it will be well prepared and in contention.
“We have such a young team,” Hill said. “We want to hold our No. 9 position and go into nationals playing well. But that starts with a good finish this weekend.”
Also facing Yale and Williams this weekend, the women hope to carry over momentum from a 3-1 effort last weekend, when the Red lost only to No. 3 Trinity. Senior co-captain Jaime Singer was pleased with the wins against Colby, Bates and Bowdoin.
“We’ve had really positive results,” said senior co-captain Jaime Singer. “We beat some really good teams.”
Singer cautions that continuing these positive results could prove difficult, as the No. 10 Red will face No. 2 Yale and No. 8 Williams.
“Yale has a deeper team then us,” Singer said. “But when it comes to Williams we really want to beat them and I think we have a pretty good chance.”
Williams in particular is a match the Red have had circled on its calendars all year.
“We really want to beat Brown and Williams,” Singer said. “Those are two of our most important matches this year.”
Unfortunately the Red has been bitten by the injury bug this year. The team’s No. 1 player, sophomore Maxi Prinsen, was recently pulled from the lineup due to injury.
“Maxi is injured, but two of our freshman, Annie Ritter and Liza Stokes, are back in the lineup,” Singer said. “That’s really going to help us.”