Sports
Hamilton College squash team registers crucial victories over Tufts and NYU
By Robert Berk ’20
December 8, 2016
Tags sports
This past weekend was incredibly important to the men’s squash team. The Continentals lost their first two matches of the season against Williams and Wesleyan who are ranked 18th and 19th in the College Squash Association team rankings. Hamilton, ranked 28th hosted 23rd ranked Tufts and unranked New York University on Saturday.
Tufts had a lot of momentum going into this weekend after beating 20th ranked Colby 6-3. The Jumbos and Continentals faced off at 2:30 p.m. The top half of the ladder took care of business. In the first position, Colin O’Dowd ’19 won in four games. The third game was very intense as he won 12-10. Tucker Hamlin ’17 won his match in three games. A pair of first-years were in the third and fourth spots, Callum Sondhi ’20 and Tristan Chaix ’20. Sondhi dropped the first game but rallied to win the next three. Chaix also put himself in a pickle by loosing the first, but roared back. He took complete momentum by a dominant fourth game, which he won 11-0. Sam Matlick ’17 and Nicholas Conzelman ’20 fought hard in the fifth and sixth spots in the ladder. Unfortunately they both lost, but put up great fights as their matches went the full five games. Jonathan Ruth ’18 also lost his match in five games. Wins by Mark Sperry ’17 and Atticus Jones ’19 gave the Continentals the victory. Sperry won in four games and Jones battled all match to win in five games.
Upsetting Tufts had been the team’s focus over the past couple of weeks of practice. When asked about the improvement from their first matches Hamlin said, “We knew going into the weekend how important the matches were, especially Tufts. In preparation we focused on our game plan and continued to improve our fitness and on court strategy. We went in feeling really prepared and the support from the fans gave us that extra little motivation to take control of some of the close matches.” Overall the entire ladder performed well and the crowd was into it.
The Continentals hoped to ride their wave of momentum from beating Tufts to their second match of the day.
The match against New York University was pushed back from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. due to earlier matches taking longer than expected. However, the Continentals did not let that slow them down. Eight of our nine players won their matches. Sondhi, Chaix and Jones all won in three games. Sondhi set the tone early by winning the first 11-1. Chaix had to battle to win the second 15-13. Jones kept his opponent from scoring more than four points in each of the games. Hamlin, Conzelman and Sperry both dropped the first game before rallying to win the next three. Matlick played his second five game match of the day. He was down 2-1 but was determined and won the last two games to win the match. Ruth’s match also went a full five games, but unfortunately he lost the back and forth affair.
However, Hamilton won the match 8-1.
The excitement and pride was visible on the faces of the Continental players. When asked about the successful day a whole Matlick said, “Taking action on the various skills we worked on as a team over the last month, pushing each other to utilize them during our matches this weekend. Also a general sense of giving it our absolute all before we go on break to set us up in the best position possible for when we return.” The wins evened the Continentals record at 2-2. They will be returning to campus early from break to continue training. By the time the spring semester starts they will have already completed four matches in the New Year.