BY CAITLIN LYNCH '20
Mount Holyoke Squash – ranked 29th nationally by the College Squash Association – traveled to Haverford, Pa. on Saturday morning to face the 30th-ranked Haverford College Fords. After the Lyons secured a 9-0 victory in Haverford, they took to the road once more to face 20th-ranked Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Mount Holyoke put up a good fight, taking six matches past three games, but ultimately the Dickinson Red Devils landed the 9-0 win. These two matches bring Mount Holyoke Squash to 3-14 for the season.
Eight of nine matches in the ladder against Haverford posted 3-0 wins for the Lyons. Ragini Ghose '19, Nadindhi Udangawa '19, Allison Shilling '17, Lessly Portillo '19, Tanishka Sachidanand '19, Emily Chang '18, Rose Minichiello '17 and Amanda Lee '17 all swept the competition in positions 2-9, respectively. Ghose faced Haverford first-year Kaitlin Reese and scored 11-6, 11-8 and 11-9 victories. Significant victories came from Udangawa and Shilling, who faced Haverford captain and senior Isabel Agnew and junior Olivia Franco, respectively, to score 11-2, 11-3 and 11-5 and 11-1, 11-3 and 11-3, respectively. Portillo triumphed over Haverford senior Emilia Cobbs with 11-4, 11-4 and 11-7 wins, while teammate Sachidanand trumped sophomore Mason McNulty with 11-8, 11-7 and 11-6 wins. Finally, Minichiello took on Haverford first-year Sophie Jackson, scoring 11-9, 11-4 and 11-2, and Lee took on sophomore Stephanie Lukez and scored 11-2, 11-7 and 11-8. From the first position, Haverford captain and junior Isabelle Gotuaco started off strong with an 11-7 win in the first game, but Brandy Williamson '18 bounced back for the Lyons and closed the match with three wins (11-7, 11-5, 13-11) for Mount Holyoke. This match brought Mount Holyoke's season standing up to 3-13 and Haverford's down to 1-8.
In their second match of the day, Mount Holyoke took on Dickinson College. Ghose, Minichiello and Lee shouldered 3-0 losses from the second, eighth and ninth positions. From the first position, Williamson lost the first two games, but fought hard in the third to edge out Dickinson at 13-11. Williamson lost the last match to finish with a score of 3-1. Also ending with 3-1 was Sachidanand from the sixth position, who managed an 11-3 win in the second game but fell behind in the first, third and fourth. The remaining four positions required all five games to be played in order to determine a winner, and Mount Holyoke put up a good fight. From the third position, Udangawa battled Dickinson sophomore Nicole DeLuca and scored 11-8 victories on the second and third games, but lost in the first (11-8), fourth (11-6) and fifth (11-7). Shilling beat out Dickinson first-year Jamie-Leigh Edghill from the fourth position in games two (11-9) and four (11-7), but was defeated in games one (11-1), three (11-7) and five (11-9). From the seventh position, Chang faced Dickinson sophomore Sarah Murphy and scored wins in the second (11-8) and third (11-4) games. Ultimately, Murphy was able to pull ahead in games four and five to win the seventh position for Dickinson. The closest faceoff of the match was from the fifth position, where Portillo took on Dickinson sophomore Alanis Perez. Perez took the first match 11-7, but Portillo fought back with a 12-10 win in the second game. Closer still, Perez took the third match at 13-11 and Portillo took the fourth at 13-11. In a neck-and-neck set, Perez managed to win the fifth-position match for the Red Devils with an 11-7 win in game five. After a long day of playing squash, the Lyons shouldered a 9-0 loss to Dickinson, moving Mount Holyoke's standing to 3-14 and Dickinson's to 6-8.
Squash plays next at home vs. William Smith College on Saturday, Feb. 4 at 10 a.m.