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| Salik Awan won his #9 match against Harvard tonight |
CAMBRIDGE – Playing at the second-ranked team in the country, Tufts sophomore Salik Awan defeated his Harvard opponent to highlight an 8-1 Jumbo loss to the Crimson in a men's squash match on Wednesday night.
Ranked 23rd themselves, the Jumbos performed admirably against a Harvard team that was a national finalist last season. The loss dropped Tufts to 2-1, while Harvard improved to 2-0 early in the 2018-19 season.
In the #9 match, Awan was down 2-1 before winning the fourth and fifth games to take the match. He won the first 11-7, but then Harvard's Varoun Gulati came back with 11-6 and 11-5 victories. Awan took the fourth game 11-8 and then sealed his victory with another 11-8 win in the decisive fifth game.
Tufts freshman Will Dewire extended Harvard's Rana Bansal to four games in the #7 match. Dewire was down 2-0 before holding off Bansal for a win in the third gamem. Final game scores were 11-7, 11-8, 9-11, 11-3.
Junior Connor Wind and senior co-captain Brett Raskopf both had competitive three-game losses in the sixth and eighth spots, respectively. Wind lost to Theodore Mendez 11-7, 11-7, 11-5, and Raskopf was defeated by John Finley Ong 11-6, 11-7, 11-6.
Harvard won the top five matches by decisive margins.
The Jumbos play at #20 Middlebury College and #21 Williams College in a pair of NESCAC matches this weekend. Harvard hosts #22 MIT on Friday.
