Feb. 17, 2007

Results

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The 11th-ranked Navy squash team turned in wins over No. 14 Franklin & Marshall and No. 37 Penn State Saturday afternoon at Halsey Field House in what was the final week of the regular season. The pair of wins pushed the Mids' record to 21-7, marking the second time in three years Navy has reached the 20-win plateau.

"We had a very vocal crowd of Midshipmen who came out to support our team today," said seventh-year Navy head coach Craig Dawson. "They proved to be a big difference-maker in several of our matches against Franklin & Marshall."

Navy opened the afternoon with a 6-3 victory over arch rival Franklin & Marshall that featured wins by Navy's top-four players. Junior captain Tucker George (West Hartford, Conn.) took the opening game, 9-6, but fell behind in the match after dropping games two and three, 9-7 and 10-8, respectively. George went on to claim games four and five to earn a 3-2 win over 83rd-ranked Sadig Madraswala at the No. 1 position.

Freshman Nils Mattsson (Spring House, Pa.), and sophomore Alastair Smith (Hillsborough, N.J.) had little trouble in picking up wins at the No. 2 and 3 spots, respectively, as each won their matches, 3-0. Dawson was quick to point out that Mattsson played perhaps his best match of the season against a veteran player in senior Satyajit Seshadri.

Junior Jeff Sawin (Haverford, Pa.) battled junior Jehangir Aibara to a 3-1 victory, dropping the third game by a 10-8 decision. Freshman Ben Mantica (Binghamton, N.Y.) was handed a 9-5 setback in his opening match at No. 6 by Edward Bryan, but came back to win back-to-back matches, 9-7 and 9-6. Bryan evened the match with a 9-6 game-four win, but Mantica put the match away with a 9-6 decision in the fifth.

Both Christopher Zipf (Gladwyne, Pa.) and Dan Hellier (Modesto, Calif.) dropped heartbreakers. Zipf faced his former high school teammate, Patrick Pasquariello, who won 9-7, 9-6, 3-9, 9-7 at the No. 7 position. Meanwhile, Hellier's match went down to the wire with Ketankumar Patel pulling out a 9-6, 8-10, 8-10, 9-6, 9-6 win at No. 8.

Following its win over the Diplomats, the Mids turned in a 9-0 victory over Penn State, winning all nine matches in three games. Junior Brian Hamilton (Lake Forest, Ill.) and sophomore Allen Hartley (Charleston, W.Va.) both earned sweeps over their foes at the No. 8 and No. 9 positions. Sawin gave up just one point in his victory over Muhamad Al Shiha at No. 3, as did Zipf in his No. 6 match against Matt Billingsley. Sophomore Michael Beautyman Jr (Plymouth Meeting, Pa.) also turned in a win on the afternoon, cruising past Jordan Reed at No. 4, 9-3, 9-1, 9-1.