By Jimmy Sullivan
The Fordham men’s squash team is still rolling.
The squad won the Northeastern Round Robin this past weekend against Northeastern University, Brandeis College, Boston College and Boston University. The team only lost a single game in Friday night’s match against Northeastern. These wins bought Fordham squash to 18-3 on the season as they can begin preparations for the College Squash Association team championship, which will be held Feb. 23-25 at Trinity College’s Kellner Squash Center. The team is hot heading into that tournament, as it has won 13 of its last 14 matches.
All of the usual suspects were in action and firing on all cylinders for the Rams this weekend. The only loser over the course of the three days was junior Will Pantle, and his loss at the start of Friday’s match put the Rams down one game to nothing. Then, Fordham reeled off 35 individual wins in a row to sweep the weekend and win the Northeastern Round Robin to close out the regular season. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
After defeating Northeastern on Friday, the Rams took home victories against Boston College and Brandeis on Saturday, and closed the weekend with yet another 9-0 victory over Boston University. The team will now begin to set its sights upon Hartford, Connecticut as it participates in the College Squash Association Team Championships at the end of the month.
Fordham’s year is particularly impressive when you consider that many individual contributions have come from freshmen.
The first-year trio of Justin Deckoff, Griffin Fitzgerald and Tommy White has combined to go 46-7 on the year, but Fordham’s individual success has run both ends of the experience gamut. The three Rams in their final season with the program (Joseph Hughes, Peter Yuen and John Lennon) are a combined 41-13. In fact, the Rams have lost just 31 individual matches on the season, and were one win away from defeating Bryant two weekends ago, which would have put them at 19-2.
Another person who deserves immense credit for the Rams’ success is new head coach Sahel Anwar. Anwar, in his first season with the Rams, has led the team to their 18-3 mark after it went just 10-9 a season ago. Anwar is very familiar with Fordham, as he also serves as the head coach of the squash team at Fordham Prep. That being said, Anwar deserves his share of the credit for helping the Rams move forward and into the CSA team championships with just three losses on a season, including just once after Veterans Day.
The Fordham men’s squash team will need to maintain its momentum if it wishes to ascend to new heights as a team and a program. We’ll find out in a week and a half whether or not they do.
