Eps finish 15th at Nationals, beating Navy 5-4 and losing to Bates 5-4

Hartford, CT -- In a rematch with the Naval Academy in the 7/8th match in the B Division, the Williams Men had to rely on Kai Graham '15 once again. 

On Saturday, the Ephs faced Bates in a rematch of earlier this year when Williams topped the Bobcats 5-4 at home. The match featured an extremely strong performance by the bottom court, as Michael Petrick '16 (#7), Jamie Havran '18 (#8), and Nick Greaves-Tunnell '15 (#9) all defeated their Bates opponents. Galen Squiers '16 (#5) also won his match. Unfortunately for Williams, they came up short, only having notched four victories on the day to Bates's five. 

Early this afternoon, the Williams Men had a long-anticipated rematch with the Naval Academy. Earlier this year, Williams lost 6-3 on the road in Annapolis, MD. In the first round of matches, the Ephs were able to take a 2-1 lead as John Shuck '17 (#6) and Varun Sharma '16 (#9) both won their matches in four and five games, respectively. The second round of matches featured two more Williams victories, stretching the match lead to 4-2. Kevin Chen '15 (#2) was able to defeat his Navy opponent in five games, ending his illustrious Williams Squash career on a great note. Galen Squiers also nothed another victory, improving his individual record to 3-0 on the weekend

In the final round of matches, the Ephs just needed one more victory to win the match. However, all three Williams players were battling through either sickenss or injury. Jamie Ruggiero '17 (#1) and Michael Petrick, who were each playing through back injuries, both lost in three games. This evened the match score at 4-4, leaving the deciding point up to Kai Graham '15 (#4). Kai has previously proved clutch for the Ephs, as he was in the same position earlier this year against Bates, and prevailed. After losing the first game, he came back to sweep the next three, making the final match score 5-4 in favor of Williams.

After this weekend's nationals tournament, the Williams Men end the season ranked 15th in the nation.