The Yellowjacket squash team fell from their highest ranking in school history against
Yale University on Jan. 10. UR beat Princeton on Dec. 13 to earn that second spot in the polls.
Unfortunately for UR, Yale’s depth could not be matched.
Out of the nine total matches in the meet, the Yellowjackets won its only matches at the top three positions. The Yellowjackets could not keep up in the lower positions as Yale knocked off the bottom six Yellowjacket players to grab the overall win.
The match started with sophomore Joe Chapman facing sophomore Robby Berner at No. 9. Berner took a quick first two games, but Chapman wasn’t about to give up so easily.
Chapman came back to win a tiebreaker in the third game but was eventually defeated in the fourth game. This gave Yale the first win of the day, 11-5, 11-6, 11-13, 11-4.
In one of the most exciting matches of the day, junior Hameed Ahmed took on senior Aaron Fuchs at No. 3. Ahmed and Fuchs traded wins for the first four until Ahmed won the fifth game handily. Ahmed took the match, 11-9, 12-14, 11-7, 9-11, 11-3.
‘They were constantly putting pressure on us, playing low-risk attacking squash whereas we as a team were way too passive at times,’ Ahmed said.
At No. 1, sophomore Beni Fischer cruised past freshman Kenneth Chan, 11-6, 11-3, 11-6. Senior Jim Bristow had a close first two games before dominating senior Todd Ruth at No. 2.
Freshman Andres Duany lost to freshman Hywel Robinson at No. 4. At No. 5, sophomore Matt Domenick couldn’t match up to sophomore John Roberts, losing 4-11, 4-11, 10-12. Yale’s No. 6 freshman Richard Dodd beat junior Will Newnham.
The longest match of the day came at No. 7 ,with freshman Juan Pablo Gaviria narrowly losing to sophomore Ryan Dowd, 11-6, 9-11, 8-11, 11-8, 4-11. Freshman Oscar Lopez Hidalgo lost to junior Naishadh Lalwani, 7-11, 11-8, 8-11, 4-11 at No. 8.
With this loss, the Yellowjackets fall to No. 4 in the national rankings. There is still plenty of time in the season to rebound with big matches against Trinity College, Harvard University and Dartmouth College.
Manrique is a member of the class of 2012.
