By MATTHEW MICHAELS
STAFF WRITER

The squash team finished with an above .500 record, going 11-10. The team returns all but one player nesxt season. (Photo by Samuel Joseph/The Ram)

The Rams traveled up to Cambridge, Mass. with a 9-9 record to participate in the College Squash Association Team Championship Tournament. Sophomore captain Paul Monaghan understood the importance of the tournament and expressed anxiousness.

“Our main focus is and always has been the National Team Championships,” said Monaghan.

With 60 teams playing at Harvard’s squash courts, all teams were divided into nine divisions where they played against teams with similar rankings. Fordham, positioned at 49th as it has been for most of the season, was the top team in the H division. The winner of H receives the Hawthorne Cup, named after the late, great Fordham squash coach of over 50 years, Bob Hawthorne. The team would have liked to end its season by earning the cup, but it was not in the cards.

The Rams began the tournament against Bryant on Feb. 14. Fordham displayed more depth, while Bryant was top-heavy. Fordham could not hold off Bryant’s heavy hitters and lost 4-5. Freshman Jimmy Shinnick, sophomores James Potts and Matthew Crowe and junior Ross Garlick recorded wins for Fordham, but with the top four seeds all losing, its tournament hopes were squashed. With the loss, Fordham fell out of contention for the cup but remained in the consolation bracket.

Fordham met a familiar foe on Saturday; Vassar, which had been defeated by USC earlier, faced off against the Rams for the third straight week. Fordham beat Vassar by the same score, 8-1, for the third weekend in a row. With another dominating win against a rival, Fordham proved its potential when the team is firing on all cylinders.

To round out the season, Fordham faced Washington College. The two teams met on Nov. 11, and Fordham handed Washington an 8-0 loss. On Sunday, Washington played with seven athletes, forfeiting the two games at the bottom to the Rams. Garlick and Shinnick again won their matches, giving the duo perfect individual weekends. Freshman Alex LaVersa, the only Fordham defeat against Vassar, rebounded and beat his Washington opponent in straight games, 11-7, 11-6, 13-11.

The other victor against Washington was sophomore Jeremy Keller. At the second position, he won his three games 14-12, 11-5 and 11-9. In the games that were actually played, Fordham managed to win four of seven, and including the forfeits, won 6-3. The victory over Washington allowed Fordham to win the consolation bracket.

The squash team came back from Harvard without having won the Hawthorne Cup, but the CSA Championships were not a failure. With two wins, Fordham ended the season with a record of 11-10, a large improvement from last season’s 6-14 final record. Its first winning season in numerous years shows signs of promise when looking ahead to the future of the team. Only one player, senior Ray Chen, will graduate this year and the Rams hope to capitalize on this low turnover into next season.

The team grew throughout the season and if it can carry over its success into next year, Fordham will be exciting to watch.

Categories: Sports, Squash

Tags: MATTHEW MICHAELS, Sports, Squash