“He’s surely talented, but his main strength is that he works very hard at the game and is dedicated to his training,” Bullock says. “He definitely sets an example so people know you have to put in a bit extra.”
Karlen, who will captain the squad along with Barry, has earned both recognition on the national scene and the admiration of his teammates in practice.
“Right now he’s probably one of the better players in collegiate squash because he’s trained really, really hard for the last four years,” freshman Asher Hochberg says.
Bullock, too, has worked to improve.
“James Bullock is certainly the best athlete on the team,” Barry says. “He won some big matches last year because he would cover the court so well, but he’s become more focused on the technical part of his game and has made a huge jump this year.”
Behind Karlen and Bullock, the rest of the lineup falls into place with Patterson playing No. 3, followed by Whitman, Hochberg and fellow freshman Mike Blumberg. Junior Thomas Storch, Barry and senior Tomo Hamakawa currently round out the last three slots.
Like the women, the Crimson men have been practicing Tuesday and Thursday mornings, in addition to grueling workouts every afternoon.
“We definitely feel like we’re training harder than any squash team right now,” Hochberg says.
So far this season, both the men’s and the women’s teams have put together several strong performances, with each sweeping Brown, winning all 27 games in the process, and capturing the Ivy League scrimmages. There, the women defeated Yale, 8-1, and then blanked Princeton, the third-ranked team in the country.
For their part, the men shut Columbia out, trounced Dartmouth 8-1, and took an important victory over Princeton, 6-3. Indeed, the win was a surprisingly easy triumph over a competitive Tigers team.
Both teams host Cornell tomorrow. Given the talent and leadership of the two squads, it’s not a stretch to suggest that the parallels between them—not conceding a game to Brown, winning the Ivy scrimmage title, hosting Cornell—might well continue all the way through the Ivy League and national championships.