Results from the tournament at Williamstown mirrored the national rankings of the three teams. Seventh-ranked Williams College grabbed first place, winning every spot on the ladder. Amherst, who dropped in the past week from 10th to 13th place, took second, but in turn extracted a 9-0 victory from number 28 Wesleyan University.
"Little Threes is always tough for us," said senior Stuart Landesberg. "Williams is particularly strong this year and they came out playing well. But although the match score against them was one-sided, a lot of the individual matches and points were closely contested."
Matches in the top two spots grew especially heated, and the Amherst players forced their Williams counterparts to fend off some serious challenges. Senior co-captain Auloke Mather, playing as Amherst's number one seed for only the fourth time, took seven points off Eph Will Walter in the first match, six in the second, and forced the third match to ten points. Sophomore Drew Blacker did one better, coming back from losing the first two matches to win the third and fourth, only to lose the fifth to Eph Jon Barry.
In the second match of the day against Wesleyan, Amherst fielded Jeffs who normally play below the top nine: junior Andrew Slutsky, sophomore Brian Warner and first-year Cornelius Banta. Still, the Jeffs swept through the Cardinals and emerged with a landslide, 9-0 victory.
Eager to erase the memory of last week's loss to the Bobcats, the contest against Bates on Sunday was the one that the team had been waiting for all weekend. "The 6-3 loss to Bates last weekend was one we really wished we could have back," revealed Landesberg. "I know that all the way through the lineup people were hungry for this match as soon as last weekend was over. We saw what Bates had and knew that we could beat them."
And it was a beating that the Bobcats took, as the Jeffs neatly reversed the scoreboard so that it came down 6-3 in Amherst's favor. "Turning a 6-3 loss into a 6-3 win is almost unheard of; we had to win at least three of the positions we had previously lost, and I think everyone believed that they could be the ones that we would get back," Landesberg said.
Blacker's play in the number two seed once again went to five matches, but the Jeff managed to prevail over his Bobcat opponent. Slutsky once again notched points for the Amherst side, this time taking three straight matches from his challenger in the ninth spot. Blacker, junior Mark Rapisarda and sophomore Jerome Giovinazzo all took back matches that had been lost the weekend before. Senior Craig McCready and sophomore Ben Bishop made up the remaining two winning points for Amherst.
The revenge exacted against Bates provided a sweet end to the regular season for the Jeffs, especially since they had jumped to the number nine rank nationally over the last week. Next up for the Jeffs is the national CSA Team and Indivudal Championships at Yale University.
"Bates was a great win for Amherst and should establish us as a team to beat in the Molloy division at nationals," reflected Landesberg. "It has been an up and down season to be sure, but this win puts us on top and gives us a tremendous amount of confidence moving into nationals."