Squash Teams Beat Hamilton, Fall to Trinity

The Amherst squash teams took on NESCAC competition for the first time this past week. Both the men’s and women’s team handily defeated Hamilton on Saturday, Dec. 3, but were beaten by national powerhouse Trinity on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

Men

Coming off a narrow win in their home opener last weekend, the No. 18 men’s squash team rode that momentum into their first conference match of 2022-23 against No. 26 Hamilton in a dominant 9-0 sweep. Not only did the Mammoths win every match, they won six of the nine matches 3-0.

Kedar Nagaraj ’24, Adam Lictmacher ’24, and Matthew Granovsky ’25 each picked up their first win of the season at the second, fourth, and sixth spots, respectively. The Mammoths dominance didn’t just show on the scorecard, though: In total, six of the nine matches lasted less than 30 minutes, and two of the other three barely made it to that point, at 31 and 32 minutes of match time. The longest match of the competition was played by Charlie Sutherby ’23 at the top spot on the ladder. It was the only match that made it to a decisive fifth set, in which Sutherby was able to secure a 3-2 victory in 48 minutes of match time.

After their commanding victory, the Mammoths traveled to Hartford, Conn., to take on No. 6 Trinity. They did not find the same success that they did against the Continentals, however, as they were defeated 9-0 by the Bantams. Abhi Gupta ’25 played the closest — and longest — match of the competition at the fifth spot. After falling in the first set 7-11, Gupta won the following two sets 11-9, 12-10. However, his opponent ended up taking the fourth set 4-11 and prevailed in the decisive fifth set over an hour after the match had begun 7-11 to take the 3-2 victory. Andrew Leung ’23, playing in the eight spot, was the only other Mammoth to win a set. He won the second set of his match 11-8 after falling 3-11 in the first, but he lost the next two sets 3-11, 7-11 for a 3-1 defeat.

The team will take a long pause before their next match, which is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 3, against Hobart College in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Women

The No. 14 women’s team avenged their tight loss last week with a resounding 7-2 victory against No. 24 Hamilton. The team’s victory was driven by match victories at the top of the order, as all five players at the one through five spots won their match. Rounding out the win were victories at the seventh and eighth spots on the ladder.

Alex Brown ’26, Callie DeLalio ’24, and Isabelle Tilney-Sandberg ’25 each earned their second win in as many matches at the second, fourth, and fifth spot, respectively. Daksha Pathak ’23 (first), Lauren Weil ’24 (third), Morgan Chauddhary ’26 (seventh), and Supriya Chang ’25 (eighth) all won their first match of the season. And like their counterparts, the team’s members won their matches in thoroughly commanding fashion, with every mammoth winning their match in around 20 minutes.

The Mammoths then took on the No. 1 Trinity in Hartford, Ct. The Bantams proved worthy of their national ranking, defeating the Mammoths 9-0 without dropping a single set. The longest match of the competition came at the fifth spot, in which Tilney-Sandberg lost 16-14, 11-6, 11-6 in 23 minutes.

Like the men’s team, the women’s team does not play until the 2023 calendar year, when they will also travel to Boynton Beach, Florida, to take on William Smith College on Tuesday, Jan. 3.