The U.S. Women’s College Championships is a special squash tournament in that it allows the players at women’s only colleges to compete on a fair. relatively level playing field, “level playing field” being one of the founding philosophical principles of Olympic sport.
Smith Squash Co-Captain Sophomore Elizabeth Guyman
Since only a small (but growing) percentage of high school squash players would currently consider attending a women’s college, when a women’s college team competes against a co-ed school, the chances are that the co-ed school has recruited much more skilled and experienced players on to their roster – creating an “unfair” and non-level playing field. The U.S. Women’s College Championships provides an opportunity for women’s colleges to compete and measure their improvement in a fair setting.
Meg Oliverio - Smith #3
There are two excellent write-ups of the tournament on the Western Massachsuetts Squash website (many thanks to Michael Bello of the Western MASS Squash site for the great photos) and the Smith College Athletics Homepage. The draws are posted below as are the rankings in each of the A,B, C and D flights, as well as the overall National Squash Rankings of players at women-only colleges.
What is great to see is that when Smith players are given an opportunity to compete against players in a relatively level playing field (the Smith team is still the least experienced with only one player with competitive high school experience), the team excels, finishing second overall in total points, behind Mount Holyoke’s points, and a close third using the averaging method used to calculate the official result (a very fair female way of doing things:).
Smith #1 Shanita Williams
The individual flight organization of the tournament only adds to the “level playing field” aspect of the competition. Only a few days ago Smith fell to Wellesley 8-1 in a one-sided team dual match. The Smith team fielded the largest entry with 13, followed ny MHC with 10 and Wellesley with 8.
Here are the draws and results, click on a thumbnail to enlarge:
Tim Bacon’s last practice with the Smith College Squash Team was on Monday, November 10th, as he had a total right hip replacement on Wednesday, November 12th. Tim’s replacement, former Div. III leading William’s College Squash & Tennis Coach Erin Robson are no strangers. After leaving Willliam’s to start a family, Erin has assisted Tim twice in coaching the Smith College Squash Team, the last time right up until her 8th month of pregnancy! Since then she has also helped coach the Amherst Women’s Squash Team and kept her own top game in shape. She is a graduate of Smith College’s Master’s in Coaching program, and coached the Smith Team – including a team trip to England – during her two years in the program.
Erin has stepped in and done a great job from the start, partly because both she and Tim share highly similar philosophies and points of view in coaching squash and mentoring college student-athletes.
With more than 40 Smith team matches to supervise in yesterday’s U.S. Women’s College Championships, Tim, with the help of the team’s Mercedes Pepper offered to help out from his rehabilitation home in Middletown, CT:
Here is the Court Schedule and the A, B, C, and D Draws for the 2008 U.S. Women’s Colleges Squash Championships to held tomorrow, Saturday, November 22 at the Smith College Squash courts. Read the rest of this entry »
The team has been training hard since the start of practices seven weeks ago on October 6th. The first important competition of the season is the Wesleyan Invitational on December 6-7th at Wesleyan. The team has showed a lot of improvement in skills and fitness in their matches the last two weekends against Northeastern, Wellesley, and Wesleyan. Here is a link to everyone’s name and hometown.
Smith College Squash Team 2008-09 - Fall top 13
The big challenge in terms of results will be to overcome the team’s lack of experience (total season of competitive play on top 10 is less than 20 years – so two years a person), and lack of fitness – despite improvemets since October 6th, with one or two exceptions the team’s overall fitness results fall at about the 50th percentile for high school girls. The results would rank much lower compared to the average college or high school female athlete. This is due mostly to lack of training in the months prior to the start of the season, and a lack of appreciation for the fact that is takes 4-5 months to get in shape for top level college squash, not 5-6 weeks.
There is a great opportunity for the team to learn and improve in this weekend’s 2008 U.S. Women’s Colleges Champiionships – an individual flight tournament held here at Smith on Saturday, Novemebr 22, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Smith College Squash Team is frantically reworking their pre-match team cheer following Junior Semester Away Captain Alice “Red” Reznickova’s pre-competition advice:
“And, most importantly: OUR CHEER after the intros IS “SMITH”. Simply Smith. Do not try to discuss it just before you have to do it. It’s a waste of time and in the end it’s still just “SMITH”.”
A hasty improvisation before the Northeastern match “eins – zwei – drei – SMITH!” did not meet with universal team approval – in fact some were quite distraught and angry on the trip to Wellesley.
Jess MacLeod - Angry or Distraught?
Meg Oliverio and the team’s two American Studies students have suggested a classical Germanic folk saying (as used by Def Leppard in their Pyrotechnic Album – lyrics here – and later by the Offspring – go to the YouTube link), although they have been slow to provide the exact translation:
obwohl wir auch das zweite spiel des heutigen tages gegen Wellesley hoch verloren haben war der unterschied in der spielstärke nicht so groß wie bei northeastern.
Smith #12 Julia Howald
Julia Howald & Mercedes Pepper's left ear
If you cannot read German written without Kapital letters, the Smith College Squash team fought hard against their sisters from Wellesley, improving upon their morning performance in downtown Boston with a pair of thrilling five-game matches. Junior Luisa Tsang, at the start of only her second season of squash came back from a 2-0 deficit to take her more experienced opponent 10-8 in the fifth! Part of the credit is due to the coaching of former Williams Squash and Tennis Coach Erin Robson, who will be coaching the team this season while Tim Bacon is getting his right hip replaced and rehabbed. Robson was Head Coach of Squash for the Smith team during her graduate studies in Smith College’s Department of Execise & Sport Studies in the 1990’s. Read the rest of this entry »
Lots of progress and improvement, but too early in the season to score against the seasoned Northeastern team in Boston today. The team did not win a match (nor a game) but fought very hard and there were some great rallies. First year Catie Blunt came closest with a great second game, coming back from a large deficit losing 10-8 in the final moments. With only seven full years of squash experience on the squad the Smith players are showing great promise! And they had a great lunch at Subway – they were so polite that the Subway manager offered free cookies all around!
And here are the scores for the Smith College’s top nine (although another four played exhibition matches against the NorthEastern players: Luisa Tsang, Sarah Lentz, Kailin Weng, Julia Howald):
Posted by Tim Bacon 
Posted by Tim Bacon 
Posted by Tim Bacon 
