Photo courtesy of Mount Holyoke Athletics. Xaria Durocher '24, above, won matches against Bard College and Wellesley College.
By Lauren Leese ’23
Staff Writer
Mount Holyoke Squash competed against three teams on the weekend of Nov. 19 and 20. Saturday saw the team handily beat Bard College 9-0 and Wellesley College 8-1. Sunday’s competition resulted in a 9-0 loss to the Georgetown University team, which is ranked 22nd in the nation.
On Saturday, Xaria Durocher ’24 competed in Mount Holyoke’s No. 1 spot and beat Bard’s No. 1 player three games in a row with scores of 11-6, 11-5 and 11-2. Durocher also faced Wellesley’s No. 1 player in a tougher matchup that saw Durocher initially lose two games before rebounding to win 3-2 with scores of 7-11, 11-13, 11-4, 11-3 and 11-9.
“Being able to compete with my teammates after training hard during our preseason practices felt amazing,” Durocher said. “It really gave me something to look forward to continue fighting for. I can't wait to make new memories with my team and coaches.”
In the No. 2 position, Tina Mei ’26 stormed to victory over the Bard player 3-1 with scores of 9-11, 11-4, 11-5 and 11-1 and the Wellesley player 3-0 with scores of 11-5, 11-3 and 11-0. Ku Paw ’26, Paige Gershuny ’25 and captains Elba Barra Montgomery ’23 and Dnyaneshwari Haware ’23 all won their matches against their Bard and Wellesley opponents 3-0. Sally Philpott ’23 lost to the No. 7 Wellesley opponent and won against Bard by default, and Cydney Socias ’25 and Keying Lin ’23 won against Bard and Wellesley by default.
Though all Mount Holyoke players lost their matches against Georgetown on Sunday, Montgomery was the Lyons’ top scorer, taking a total of 11 points across three matches in the No. 4 position. The competitions leave Mount Holyoke at 3-1 overall for the season so far.
Durocher expressed disappointment at her Sunday result but said she remains motivated for the rest of the season. “During my match with my opponent from Georgetown, I felt like I disappointed myself,” she said. “For my next matches moving forward, I’m going to fight for my [No. 1] position like it’s my last moment being [No. 1]. I refuse to let other squash teams look down on us or think we’re an easy team to beat because we’re not.”
Head Squash Coach Erin Robson spoke about the value of the weekend’s matches. “With Bard and Wellesley, … we were able to attack and to control the pace,” she said. “Georgetown exposed some weaknesses. We know what we need to work on as a team and individually.”
Looking forward to rest of the season, Robson detailed some areas the team is planning to work on. “We know that we need to return serve better and continue to work on more consistent play from the backcourt,” Robson said. “We have time to focus on these areas before our next matches, and we will need to make steady improvement so that we can compete with confidence against teams like Wesleyan, Colby and Bowdoin in January.”
The Lyons’ next competitions will take place on Jan. 13 and 14 at Wesleyan University, where they will compete against Denison University, Haverford College, Wesleyan University and Brown University.