"The Cape Town match gave us a good indication of what our strengths and weaknesses are," said Captain Addison West '01. "We knew we would have to rebound quickly for our match against Vassar."
After traveling several hours to upstate New York, the Jeffs proceeded to do exactly that, defeating the Vassar College Brewers in dominating fashion.
"Most of our guys played pretty solid despite the long drive and short warm up time," said Coach Peter Robson. "It was a good confidence boost, especially after a tough match with Cape Town."
West led the team to victory with a decisive win over top player Andrew Schmidt, 3-0. David Bauer '03, Roger Boulay '03, Sujay Desai '01, J. Ashley Ebersole '01, John Holodnak '03 and Carlo Valdesolo '03 all followed suit, with impressive 3-0 victories.
The lone rookie on the team, Asad Haque '04, had a tougher time dispatching Vassar's Stefan Pasymowski. He dropped the first game of the match, but rallied back to win by a final of 3-1.
John Brody '02 had the only loss on the day for the Jeffs. He struggled early and eventually fell to the talented Rahul Lulla at the number six position.
"We went into the match determined to play our best squash, and I think we did just that," said Valdesolo.
Next the Jeffs face off against Tufts University at home on Thursday. Last year they defeated the Jumbos 8-1.
After the Tufts match the Jeffs face a long layoff. They have much of Interterm off and will resume action Jan. 17, when they travel to Dartmouth College. The Big Green, who beat the Jeffs 7-2 last year, should prove to be a difficult match again this year.
After the match against Dartmouth the Jeffs will head to the University of Pennsylvania on Jan. 20 for a doubleheader. In the first game, Amherst will take on the University of Rochester, and in their second match of the day they will face the University of Pennsylvania. The Quakers beat the Jeffs 7-3 in last year's match.
On Jan. 23 the Jeffs will return home for another doubleheader. They will face off against Colby College and Brown University. Last year the Jeffs' match against Brown was cancelled and they didn't face Colby.
Last year the Jeffs had a difficult Interterm, completing the period with a 1-3 record. This year the team hopes to build off of their victory over Vassar.
"The upcoming matches will be tougher than Vassar, but if we keep working hard, we should fare very well," said Valdesolo.