By Tom Terzulli
The team played four matches at the Navy Invitational, winning one. (Ram Archives)
The squash team kicked off its 2015-2016 season at the home of the Midshipmen in Annapolis, MN to duke it out with four other teams in the Navy Round Robin.
The action began with the Rams taking on the host team in a Friday matchup. In what was by far the toughest matchup of the weekend, the Rams fell in a 9-0 sweep to the Midshipmen, a team ranked in the top 16 in the country. It was a dominating affair for Navy with all of their victories coming in three set sweeps. The closest matchup came in the first slot with Ram Senior Kincade Webster falling in a valiant effort 11-8, 11-3 and 11-5 to Navy’s Senen Ubina. Sophomore Peter Yuen also gave the Midshipmen’s Jack Herold a run falling 11-4, 11-2 and 11-7 in the second slot. Senior Matthew Crowe contributed the third best performance of any Ram in the third set of his loss to Navy’s Reed Whitney falling 11-4, 11-1, 11-6.
There was no rest for the dejected Rams as they met the Washington Huskies in a 9 a.m. Saturday morning matchup. Fordham bounced back nicely, topping the Huskies 6-3 for their first win in the young season. After going down 2-0, the Rams fired back with six straight wins. Senior Jeremy Keller gave Fordham its first set victory of the year in the third position with a four-game trouncing of Washington’s Jai Padmakumar 6-11, 11-5, 11-9 and 11-5. John Lennon took one more game to put away the Husky Malcolm Daigle 6-11, 12-10, 11-1, 9-11 and 11-6 for the second point. Juniors Jimmy Shinnick (11-6, 11-4, 11-3) and Sahil Bahri (15-13, 11-3, 11-5) each swept their matches over Claire Overby and Yunfeng Shi respectively. In the seventh slot Crowe nipped Andrew Kim of the Huskies in four games, holding Kim to seven points total after losing the first of the four games (9-11, 11-2, 11-2, 11-3). Finally, Senior James Potts routed Husky Aman Bawa, like his teammate did in the previous slot winning three straight games after losing the first.
Sixth year head coach Bryan Patterson was pleased with how his team bounced back following the Navy loss: “All the players were mentally prepared to give their all, so in this respect I didn’t have to do much to get them up for the match. They wanted to win and to show that they could rebound.”
In a busy day for the Rams, they fell in a close 5-4 matchup to Haverford College that afternoon. Fordham came out firing on all cylinders to start the match taking a 3-0 lead on the backs of wins from Webster, Yuen and Keller. The Webster and Yuen victories both came in three-game sweeps of Haverford’s Nate Vestrich-Shade and Peter Dudley. Keller needed one more game to secure his success, 11-6, 8-11, 11-4, 11-9 over Laurenson Ward. The Rams would drop four of the next five games with the lone triumph being Crowe’s four game bouncing of Will Greer 11-2, 11-6, 8-11, 14-12.
Fordham capped off their weekend at the Naval Academy with a 6-3 loss to fellow Jesuit institution, Georgetown University. Once again, a great start did not lead the Rams to glory as they blew yet another 3-0 start. The first triumph came from Webster’s three game rout of the Hoya’s Austin Dixon. Yuen upended Georgetown’s Matt Williams in a 5 game marathon 10-12, 11-3, 11-4, 8-11, 11-7. Keller picked up the second straight set victory of the day for the Rams with a three game drubbing of Nick Bowell, 11-6, 11-7, 12-10.
Keller and Crowe were stars of the weekend, with Keller posting three victories and Crowe notching two straight after the Navy loss. Coach Patterson chalked up the performance to the tireless effort of the two: “Both Crowe and Keller are intense players who are great examples of giving 100 percent all the time.”
With a 1-3 record to begin the season, Fordham will next be in action again Friday Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. against fellow New York City school NYU at the Lombardi Center squash courts.
