A little over halfway into their season, the men's squash team is enjoying the advantages of a solid team with solid results. At the beginning of the season, the men displayed enormous potential by starting with a record of 3-0 by winning easily against Tufts, Vassar and Bates Colleges. At Tufts, Amherst co-captain Carlo Valdesolo '03 defeated Tufts' Neil Pallaver 3-0 (9-4, 9-5, 9-1) to lead the 14th ranked Jeffs past the 20th ranked Jumbos and his other teammates followed in his tracks. Number six John Brody '02 was the only other Jeff with a complete shutout win of 3-0 (9-5, 9-1, 9-1) over Jordan Kolasinski of Tufts. Amherst went on to take the match 9-0.

In the Vassar game, the men's squash team only dropped one game and crushed Vassar in another 9-0 victory. After holiday break, the Jeffs came back to play Bates, in which they took the match 6-3. Unfortunately, later in the day, the Jeffs ended up losing to Cornell University, bringing their record to an admirable 3-1. Cornell's skill level was definitely a challenge for the Jeffs, who suffered a 0-9 defeat although many players attained 2-3 holds against Cornell.

Later in the week against Dartmouth College, Amherst again suffered a bad loss of 0-9 and dropped their record to 3-2. However, freshman Gifford Sommerkamp, co-captain John Holodnak '03 and Brody were the only Amherst players to take their competitors to four games, each falling by a final score of 3-1.

The Amherst men next played 10th ranked University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in a close match-up, but UPenn ended up with a 5-4 victory. Three impressive wins by Valdesolo, Holodnak and Sommerkamp provided a great boost for the rest of the team.

Amherst again fell to another Ivy League rival when they played Brown University on Jan. 22. However, it was Sommerkamp who proved his spot on the team with the only win for Amherst. His win is even more impressive because he defeated Brown competitor Bradley Corona, who is 33rd in the national rankings. Breaking their four match losing streak, the Jeffs finally had a big victory over Massachusetts Institute of Technology, winning 7-2. Although Amherst's first and second seeds lost early on, the remaining matches were captured by the Jeffs. Later in the night though, Amherst lost to Trinity College, which has seven players in the National Indoor Squash and Racquetball Association top 20.

The men's most recent games against Rochester University and Franklin and Marshall College this past weekend proved to be critical in their rankings. With a 4-5 record, the Jeffs needed a few more victories under their belt in order to attain a national ranking higher than their current 15th place. This became possible when the Jeffs beat Rochester in a blowout win of 9-0-not a single game was dropped.

Against Franklin and Marshall, the two top seeded players, Valdesolo and Mike Strong were defeated, however; seeds 3-8 won in an overpowering battle. The victory (6-3) proved pivotal for the national ranking of the team since Franklin and Marshall recently lost to Bowdoin 5-4. Yet, with the most recent win, Amherst rose to 13th in the national rankings.

"Our win against F&M should move us up in the rankings and give us a good seed in the Hoehn Cup. We are looking to move into the top 10 by the end of the season," said Sommerkamp.

The Jeffs next match is against a team from Dublin City, Ireland at home on Feb. 2, where they will attempt to pull off their first international win of the year.