Squash begins second season with high hopes | The Triangle

Squash begins second season with high hopes

The inaugural season of Drexel squash came and went, but it was not without some notable moments. The men’s team won its very first match at Haverford College with a 9-0 scoreline. On, the women’s side, despite starting its season 0-11, won two out of three matches at the Howe Cup later against Vanderbilt University and Northeastern University. The men won the consolation final at the College Squash Association Team Championships to end the season with a No. 29 national ranking.

Yet when Drexel’s men’s and women’s squash teams both begin their second season in school history Nov.16 against Franklin & Marshall College, all the events of the previous season will, one would think, go to the wayside. Everything about last season was new and unfamiliar. None of that will be the case this time around.

From the get-go, the men’s team has it somewhat tough, playing three days in a row. In addition to the men’s opening match against No.7 Franklin & Marshall, they continue their early-season slate with a Nov. 17 match at home against No. 22 Connecticut College and then an away match Nov.18 against the top-ranked team in the country and defending CSA national team champion Princeton University. None of those opponents will likely take their eye off the Dragons, given that they too are ranked heading into the season at No. 26.

Furthermore, the women’s team, which faces the same three opponents as their male counterparts, will face a No. 14 Franklin & Marshall side, a No. 23 Connecticut College side, and a tough Princeton University team that will start this season with the same No. 4 ranking they had at the end of last year.

Individually speaking, both sides will begin this season with a good mixture of youth and experience, with four sophomores for the men and five for the women alongside several upperclassmen. The top players for both teams also return this season. Junior Justin Singh and sophomore Kiran Vasudevan come back this season surely as the No.1 players in the men’s and women’s sides. Singh went 17-2 last year, advanced to the second round of the Molloy Division bracket at the CSA Individual Championships, and was named to the Philadelphia Sports Information Directors of America men’s and women’s All-Academic Team. Vasudevan, who along with Singh was named to the Philly-SIDA All-Academic Team, guided the women’s side to the team’s first-ever wins last season, in addition to having singles wins against three teams.