As the Colby men’s and women’s squash teams hit the road at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 15, both teams were filled with optimism and excitement for their upcoming season. On the ride back to Waterville, the group continued to hold their heads high and looked forward to the future, despite the women’s 1–8 loss and the men’s 0–9 loss to Columbia University. The Mules won one match on the women’s side, with Laavanya Kugan `26 getting a score of 3–0 in the number one spot.
This weekend’s match took place in Medford, Massachusetts at Tufts University, as Columbia played a doubleheader — or two matches — on the same day. Gigi McWhorter `29 noted the advantages of arriving a bit early, before stepping onto the courts at 3:00 p.m. “We got to watch [Columbia] play beforehand, scout out the opposition a little bit.”
The Mules knew even before seeing Columbia in action that they would make for tricky competition due to their ranking of tenth in the College Squash Association, while Colby held the seventeenth spot. With the Mules in the underdog position, many players wanted to look at this match as a learning experience.
“[In the future,] I think going in with the mindset that each point is a new point, and just taking it one point at a time [will be] really helpful, at least for me, because it definitely can get frustrating when you’re getting crushed. But, I think overall, the team did a really good job of keeping a cool head,” McWhorter said. Columbia was absolutely on their A-game, even after playing earlier that day. [Although we lost,] everyone played really, really well… so that was really awesome. We had a couple of games that were really tight. Even though we lost, it was a great start to the season, because it’s only up from here.”
From this first match, the group also noticed what went well and kept it in mind for next time. “The men and the women [played] at the same time. So it [was] a lot of fun, because everyone kind of just watched each other and cheered for each other… Cheering for your teammates is so important. The coach and like your teammates watching, are able to pick up on things that you wouldn’t necessarily see. Keeping the team spirit and the camaraderie high is a good lesson to carry forward,” McWhorter said.
Avery LaMotte `29 notes that the team has been actively working to achieve this mindset in their practices. “We had a meeting where we talked about positive self-talk and not letting your emotions show when you’re on court. [We also] had challenge matches yesterday to determine everyone’s ranking. It was good practice for a real match, because you can practice positive self-talk,” LaMotte said.
Both teams feel as though they accomplished their goals, as Nevin Conroy `29 of the men’s team addressed the hope of determining their current standing. “We have a lot of new players, like the ladder’s a little bit different. [We wanted to see] how the team works out. With a match, [you] are just going in there and seeing what you can do to improve when you play. [We wanted to see] what things come up in the match, like, what we can work on as a team,” Conroy said.
Looking to the future, the men’s team has wider accomplishments they hope to achieve, and Seif Ashraf `27 feels confident in their ability to do so. “Our main goal is to reach the top 12 in the country, as we were ranked fourteenth after the end of the season last year… Our goal is to keep improving every day and help the team win. We’re also focused on staying consistent and healthy and bringing some energy to every match,” Ashraf said.
Both teams plan to apply their new knowledge throughout the rest of the season, starting November 22 when the men’s team plays the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the women play Wesleyan University. “[Wesleyan] is going to be a huge deciding match. And historically, this has been a very tight match, and can go either way. So I think everyone’s kind of really looking forward to that,” McWhorter said.
~ Isabella Boggs `29
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