Franklin & Marshall, Brown no match for sharp men's squash

Fifteen minutes. That was how long it took junior co-captain David Yik to defeat Bradley Corona on Saturday in the men's squash match against Brown.

This win exemplified the Tigers near-perfect match against the Bears and propelled the Tigers to a 9-0 win. The victory came on the heels of a 9-0 drubbing of Franklin and Marshall and gave the Tigers a 4-0 record heading into Christmas.

While the Tigers entered Saturday's match against the Bears with an easy victory on their minds, they did not want to lose their focus. The team had been concentrating on individual weaknesses for the past two weeks in practice, and this match provided an opportunity for head coach Bob Callahan '77 to see how the team has progressed.

"The focus today was on individual priorities," Callahan said. "Each player worked on his weaknesses, and today we put all those things together. Some of the players worked on being more aggressive, controlling play, and getting better footwork."

Callahan thought that the team was successful in accomplishing their goal. Yik dominated his opponent to such a great extent that he did not surrender a single point in the entire match, winning 9-0 in all three games. He used his finesse and movement to control the pace of the game and never let his opponent in the match. In the final game, he did not allow his opponent to serve, let alone win a point.

"I wanted to leave no doubt about the outcome," Yik said. "Putting them away this efficiently is a good thing."

The rest of the team behind Yik also did an excellent job of making all the changes that they had worked on during practice. Junior No. 2 Dan Rutherford also won his match handily, 9-3, 9-2, 9-1. He was able to control the match with his power. This made his drop shots all the more effective against his opponent, who could not chase down all the shots that Rutherford hit.

"I went out and just set up the basics," Rutherford said. "I didn't want to take anything for granted — just go out and focus."

The rest of the top five also won their matches 3-0. Junior Will Evans won 9-3, 9-1, 9-2 and senior captain Peter Kelly only surrendered nine points the entire match.

Freshman Dent Wilkins played in the No. 5 spot for the injured Eric Pearson '03. He fell behind early in the first game, but shook off any rust and took command of the match by the end of the first game. After winning this one 9-6 he went on to win both of the next two 9-1. This was Wilkins' second straight match in the top five.

In the end, the Tigers dropped only three games to the Bears and completed a very successful twogame stint.

This success was carried over from the match against Franklin and Marshall. Again, it was Yik who led the way for the Tigers, winning his match easily while only dropping a single point.

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"That was about as good a match as I've ever seen him play," Callahan said.

Rutherford struggled a bit in his match, dropping the first game 7-9, before winning three straight 9-0, 9-7, 9-2. There were two newcomers to the top five as Wilkins played in the No. 4 spot and sophomore Aaron Zimmerman played No. 5.

They took the place of the injured Will Evans and Pearson. Evans had a slight achilles tendon injury and Pearson was out with a strained medial collateral ligament. Pearson will likely not return to the lineup until after Christmas.

The team will now focus on the 5 Man Team Championships next weekend. This tournament will feature the best teams from around the country, including Trinity, Harvard, and Yale. How the Tigers do at this tournament will give them a good indication of what is needed to try to win the Ivy League title.