Northampton, MA — After finals and winter break, it can take some players time to get back into the competitive groove. Not the Yale men: they hit the ground running, upsetting #2 Rochester 6-3.
Other weekend highlights include the strong play from both Williams squads. The women handily defeated Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby, winning each match by a score of 9-0. The Williams men swept Colby and beat Bowdoin 8-1 but faced stiff competition from Bates. The Bobcats secured wins at 1, 3, 4, and 5, with #1 Kush Mahan and #4 Robert Burns holding on to win in 5 games. Williams controlled the bottom of the ladder, and a five-game win from #2 William Morris sealed the victory for the Ephs. With so many competitive matches, a Williams-Bates rematch could add some intrigue to the NESCAC tournament in early February.
The Dartmouth women had a less auspicious start to the new year, falling to both Yale and Trinity 0-9 on Saturday. Corey Schafer at #2 and Elizabeth Brown at #4 each won a game off their Yale opponents, and #1 Valeria Wiens pushed Trinity’s Nayelly Hernandez to five games. The Dartmouth men also lost to Yale 1-8.
Northern California wasn’t the most hospitable place for visiting teams: the Stanford men defeated Wesleyan 7-2, Conn 8-1, and Drexel 9-0, and the Stanford women swept Conn and Wesleyan. Only the Penn women came away with multiple wins, beating Wesleyan and convincingly defending their #3 ranking with a 9-0 win over sixth-ranked Stanford. The Wesleyan men also defeated Drexel 9-0.
The Amherst women traveled to Vermont, where they lost all but the top two matches to Middlebury.
For complete results from all of this weekend’s action, see Women’s Results and Men’s Results.
