Men’s Squash Trounces Amherst

After suffering a decisive, 8-1 defeat to No. 1 Trinity on Saturday, the No. 2 Harvard men’s squash team knew it needed a strong performance against No. 13 Amherst last night to re-energize its quest for the national title.

Led by 9-0, 9-0, 9-1 victories from junior Dylan Patterson and sophomore Ziggy Whitman and a 9-0, 9-0, 9-0 thrashing administered by junior Thomas Storch, the Crimson (5-1, 2-0 Ivy) came away with an 8-1 victory over the Lord Jeffs (6-6). The triumph put Harvard back on the winning track heading into crucial Ivy League contests against Penn and Princeton this weekend.

Although the Crimson would prefer to ignore the Trinity match, it realizes that, with the right mindset, the loss can be made into a positive.

“You don’t really want to totally forget it, because you want to remember what you need to work on,” co-captain Peter Karlen said. “But you don’t want to concentrate on it.”

Sophomore James Bullock, the nation’s No. 9 player, seemed to have little trouble doing so as he opened the night by easily handling Carlo Valdesolo, 9-3, 9-3, 9-0.

After Valdesolo took the first point of the match, Bullock assumed control, winning the next six. By mixing his shots, the Crimson No. 2 never allowed Valdesolo to establish a rhythm.

Things only got worse for Valdesolo when, trailing 4-2 in the second game, he reinjured his right ankle, rolling it in spite of the brace he sported. Valdesolo did manage to win the next point, but Bullock then ran the table, capturing the final 14 points of the match as Valdesolo misfired on several shots and, as he grew more desperate and searched in vain for an advantage, became more aggressive in his shot-taking, leading to even more errors.

“Usually, I start off hitting bad shots and work my way in to hitting good ones,” Valdesolo said. “But if kids are hitting nasty shots off my bad ones, my forward progress ends there.”

Meanwhile, as Bullock took care of Valdesolo, erstwhile Harvard No. 1 Karlen dominated Amherst No. 4 John Holodnak.

This phase of Karlen’s recovery from a foot injury that relegated him to a walking cast earlier in the season seemed successful. At times, he displayed skills befitting his status as the No. 5 player in the nation in defeating Holodnak, 9-4, 9-0, 9-3.

Freshmen Michael Blumberg, who earned the Crimson’s lone win over Trinity, and Asher Hochberg, playing at the No. 6 and No. 8 slots, respectively, also won easily to give Harvard a 4-0 advantage as the odd-numbered players took the court. Blumberg defeated John Brody, 9-0, 9-1, 9-1, while Hochberg won almost as convincingly over Brian Lawrence, triumphing 9-2, 9-0, 9-2.

Patterson, in the No. 1 slot, led the Crimson onto Barnaby Courts for the night’s second set of matches to a chorus of cheers, many of which came from fans attending to help Patterson celebrate his twenty-first birthday.

Patterson himself, though, was all business.

“The goal today was to give [my opponent] no points, because if I come out lackadaisical on Saturday, I’ll get killed,” Patterson said.

Indeed, at the outset of the match, it appeared Patterson might well notch the shutout as he kept freshman Michael Strong entirely off balance, reducing him to chasing the ball frantically around the court, a stark contrast to Patterson’s own calm play.

Patterson blanked Strong in each of the first two games and remained on the court to run and stretch after each, attempting to alleviate stiffness throughout his lower body. As Patterson took the first three points of the third game, the shutout became an ever more realistic possibility. Unfortunately, Strong captured the fourth point of the match, but Patterson came back to take a 4-1 lead. After Strong failed to capitalize on several chances to score, Patterson made a gorgeous shot to get back on track. At 7-1, Strong excited the crowd with a behind-the-back shot, but even that wasn’t enough, and Patterson closed him out, yielding only the single point.

On one side of Court 3, where Patterson was picking Strong apart, Harvard No. 3 Ziggy Whitman, the No. 18 player in the country, crushed freshman Gifford Sommerkamp, 9-0, 9-0, 9-1. On the other side, though, it was a completely different story, as Amherst managed its lone win of the evening when Crimson co-captain David Barry fell to Amherst No. 5 David Bauer, 9-6, 9-0, 10-8.

However, Storch was able to blank Asad Haque at No. 7 and senior Tomo Hamakawa overcame a 5-2 deficit in the third game to beat sophomore Andrew Merle in the No. 9 slot, 9-0, 9-0, 9-5, for the final 8-1 tally.

Now, Harvard’s focus turns to its matches against No. 10 Penn on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and No. 4 Princeton on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. at the Murr Center. The latter contest will likely determine the Ivy League champion.

Penn has suffered this season from a lack of depth, but is led by freshman and national No. 10 Richard Repetto at the top of its lineup. Patterson, Reppeto’s likely opponent, is quite familiar with the Penn phenom, having lost to him in the national finals during Patterson’s senior year in high school.

“He’s probably the most talented American in the last ten years,” Patterson said. “He’s a shotmaker, so I’ll try to neutralize his shots and make him make mistakes.”

For their part, the Tigers have recently suffered a shake-up at the top of their lineup, with national No. 6 Will Evans leapfrogging defending national champion David Yik to take over the No. 1 position. Patterson is familiar with Evans, too, having beaten him as a freshman before losing their last three matches.

With Princeton featuring two more top-twenty players, No. 14 Dan Rutherford and No. 19 Peter Kelly, repeating as Ivy champs will be no easy task for the Crimson. Indeed, last year, the team only barely captured the title and avenged its 5-4 upset loss to Princeton the previous year when then-co-captain Shondip Ghosh eked out a 17-15, fifth-game victory.

Entering the weekend, the Harvard players are confident in their talent and conditioning. What remains to be seen, though, is whether the Trinity loss will weigh on their minds or whether they can harness it and use it as motivation for the rest of the year.