The No. 9 men's squash team routed No. 11 Amherst 7-2 yesterday afternoon at the Pizzitola Center. All it took was a training trip to Jamaica, three shutouts, two tough losses and a set of bad knees to deliver Bruno's first victory of the 2005-2006 campaign.
The men seemed determined to make the contest a laugher from the first swing of the racket. Five Brown players - Daniel Petrie '07, Edward Cerullo '08, Patrick Haynes '07 and tri-captains David Krupnick '06 and Brian Rifkin '06 - dispatched their opponents 3-0.
Tri-captain Breck Bailey '06 and Jacob Winkler '09 chose more interesting ways to claim their victories.
Bailey won his first two games and was well on his way to winning his third, but Amherst adversary Drew Blacker had other ideas, taking the third game 10-8 and the fourth 9-1. Bailey admitted that he lost focus during the third and fourth games as he continued to struggle with his aching knees. "I hit some stupid shots," he said. "He took advantage of them. It was good for him that he was able to extend it."
Bailey fought through the pain and defeated Blacker 9-4 in the fifth game. "I was proud of the fact that I was able to get a win against a talented opponent (while) not playing my best," Bailey said.
Coach Stuart leGassick admired his number one player's perseverance, considering Bailey is unable to run because of the pain in his knees. "It's close to remarkable," leGassick said. "It's a tribute to his character and determination, how he's been playing. He gets a bit winded because of his training, but he won the fifth game on sheer willpower."
Winkler had the worst start possible, losing his first game 9-0. LeGassick met with Winkler after the disastrous showing that he bluntly called some of the worst squash he had seen Winkler play. Although he lost the next game 10-9, Winkler rebounded with three wins to defeat Amherst's Craig McCready 3-2.
"I felt like I was a better player than he was," Winkler said. "I just had to settle into the match. I just had to change the way I was playing."
The team's turnaround came after training in Jamaica and losses to Williams College and Cornell, 3-6 and 4-5, respectively.
LeGassick said that while one might envy a trip to the Caribbean when College Hill is ice-bound, the team was not basking in the sun. "It was a very pleasant and sunny place," leGassick said, "but we trained very hard." According to both leGassick and Bailey, the team faced exceptional club competition that Bailey said made the team mentally and physically tougher.
The team returned to College Hill with a 0-3 record after shutout losses to No. 2 Harvard, No. 3 Princeton and No. 6 University of Pennsylvania before break. After losing to No. 10 Williams 3-6 Friday at the Pitz, the team dropped a home heartbreaker 5-4 to No. 7 Cornell on Sunday. Bailey was up 2-1 on the Big Red's Matt Serediak before dropping the next two games 9-1 and 9-7 to help put another mark in the Bears' loss column.
Bailey and his knees were able to earn redemption against Amherst though. "It feels really good," Bailey said of the victory. "First win's the hardest one. (We're) looking to build on this one."
Bailey and the Bears will look to capitalize on that momentum, traveling to Bowdoin College to take on the No. 12 host Polar Bears and No. 16 Colby College this Saturday. The team then returns home for a crucial match against No. 8 Dartmouth Feb. 5.
A win against Dartmouth would go a long way to achieve leGassick's season goal. "We feel we can compete for fifth or sixth in the country," leGassick said.
