This post was written by Hatchet Staff reporters Darius Kamshad and Rob Bartnichak
It was a bittersweet feeling for the men’s and women’s squash teams Saturday afternoon, as four victories between the two programs were counterbalanced with the goodbyes of senior day at the Lerner Health and Wellness Center.
Saturday’s play marked the third annual Squash Winter Round Robin, a pre-nationals tournament marking the end of the regular season.
Both the men’s and women’s teams were dominant in their first match against the University of Virginia, with both squads winning a combined 18 games, all in straight sets.
In the battle of the men’s No. 6 players – GW’s Charles Norfleet and UVA’s Noel Flemmer –things turned a bit heated. In the third game, Flemmer stormed off of the court and began shouting protests at the referee over a noise interruption that distracted him during play. Settling down and returning to action, Flemmer would come back to tie the set at 11-11, before Norfleet finally finished him off with two very well placed shots to win the set 13-11, and the match (11-9, 11-8, 13-11).
The No. 11 ranked women’s team, their highest ranking in program history, rolled the Cavaliers in their first match of the day. The Colonials received victories from freshman Breane Flynn, sophomores Alejandra Porras and Emely Levyn, and seniors Kelly Barnes, Elizabeth Tapley, Maya Nair, Adriana Calderon, and Becca Imrich.
On the men’s side, GW captain Christopher Bell sailed past his UVA opponent, Russell Bogue in straight sets (11-5, 11-9, 11-3). Bell, the only men’s senior, admitted this tournament to be one of his favorite points in the season.
“We always have this round robin for some of the emerging teams in the southern states, its nice the week before nationals for us,” Bell said. “It’s a good weekend to keep the ball rolling and don’t get any rust for nationals.”
The second match for GW against Bucknell was much of the same for both Colonials teams. Although two of the individual games would be pushed to four sets, the men’s team would still shut out the Bison 9-0. The women’s team would defeat the Bison in straight sets in their own 9-0 shutout.
Freshman Breanne Flynn picked up her second victory of the day to earn her team-best 13th individual win of the season with an 11-2, 11-3, 11-3 triumph at No. 2 over Bucknell’s Elanor Stout.
“When we schedule these matches in the summer we never know where we’re going to be at the end of the season but we want to keep having a match every weekend before nationals,” head coach Wendy Lawrence said. “We don’t want to kill ourselves to risk injury in really tough matches, so we knew historically that we were considerably stronger than UVA and Bucknell, although both teams are moving up in the rankings. As I say, nothing is easy but its been a great tune up for us especially the men who go into nationals next week”.
With the four victories between the two teams, the No. 20 men’s team improved to 6-10 overall while the women improved to 11-5.
Up next, both Colonial teams will travel to Boston for their National tournaments in the next upcoming weeks hosted at Harvard. The men will be competing next weekend, with the women following suit in the following week.
