CAMBRIDGE – The Tufts University women's squash team completed a strong opening weekend with an 8-1 victory over Colby College on Sunday in a match played at Harvard.
Head coach Joe Raho's Jumbos, who are at #19 in the College Squash Association preseason rankings, took care of business with decisive weekend wins against #20 Wesleyan on Saturday and #23 Colby from the NESCAC.
On Sunday, Tufts won eight of the nine matches against Colby in three games. The lone win by the Mules went five games.
Junior co-captain Claire Davidson set the tone at the top with an 11-4, 11-1, 11-3 win against Sydney Ku. Jumbo sophomore Julie Yeung won a competitive 12-10, 11-5, 11-4 match over Julianna Song at #2. Tufts' Zarena Jafry completed the top-three sweep with a convincing 11-1, 11-2, 11-5 score at #3.
The largest margin of victory for Tufts was in the eighth match where senor Sahana Karthik allowed just four points to Colby's D'Arcy Carlson (11-3, 11-0, 11-1). Both Tufts freshmen starters Megan Chen and Diya Sanghi lost just seven game in their straight victories in the sixth and seventh matches, respectively.
Colby's only victory came at #5 where Olivia Silverman topped Tufts' Hannah Burns in a five-set battle 11-8, 11-13, 5-11, 11-9, 11-6.
Rounding out Tufts' victory was sophomore Rachel Windreich, who won a 13-11 first game at #4 and then closed it out with 11-4 and 11-3 wins, and senior Chista Irani, who took an 11-5, 11-3, 11-2 final in the ninth spot.
Tufts is off until December 1 when they travel to play at #15 Middlebury.
