The 23rd-ranked Navy squash program will play its final two matches of the calendar year this weekend when it travels to Charlottesville, Va. to face 13th-ranked MIT in a neutral site match at 6:00 pm on Friday before closing the weekend with a 3:00 pm match at the Prager Family Squash Facility in Annapolis on Saturday against Lehigh.
Navy's Projected Lineup
Player (Yr / Hometown / 2021-22 record / career record)
1.
Millen Randell (Jr / Chicago, Ill. / 9-3 / 20-20)
2.
Ryan York (Sr / Hunt Valley, Md. / 9-2 / 31-24)
3.
Matt Wang (Fr / Malvern, Pa. / 9-3 / 9-3)
4.
Henry Sparkman (So / Darien, Conn. / 6-2 / 6-4)
5.
Ben Korn (Sr / Stevenson, Md. / 9-2 / 33-22)
6.
Lucas Spiro (Fr / Buffalo, N.Y. / 9-3 / 9-3)
7.
Tommy Rankin (Jr / Atlanta, Ga. / 7-3 / 14-21)
8.
Gus Prager (Sr / New York, N.Y. / 8-3 / 21-21)
9.
Ben Balser (Jr / Brooklyn, N.Y. / 8-3 / 8-3)
--- Exhibition
10.
Will Hyer (Sr / Bridgehampton, N.Y. / 7-0 / 10-0)
How to Follow
• A live scoring link for Navy's home match against Lehigh will be available on the Navy Athletics website and via Club Locker.
• Fans can also watch a live video stream of the Lehigh match via NavySports.com.
• No streaming information (scoring or video) is available at press time for the neutral site match against MIT.
Weekly Rewind
• Navy was last in action on Nov. 20 where it dropped a 9-0 match to top-ranked Penn, followed by a 6-3 loss to #17 Amherst.
• Team captain
Ryan York had a spectacular come-from-behind victory against Amerst's Robinson Armour. After falling in the opening two games (11-7, 11-8), York stormed back to win the next three (11-5, 11-7, 1-9) to capture the victory.
• Second-year standout
Henry Sparkman swept Amherst's Abhimanyu Gupta (11-8, 11-8, 11-5) at #4, while senior
Ben Korn overcame a game one loss to earn a 3-1 victory over Yeshwin Sankuratri at #5.
• Freshman
Matt Wang dropped a heartbreaker in five games to Kedar Nagaraj, including a 12-10 loss in the fifth game. Juniors
Millen Randell and
Tommy Rankin also lost four-game decisions.
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• Seven of Navy's nine players on the ladder have the opportunity to reach the 10-win milestone before the holiday break, including
Millen Randell,
Ryan York, Matt Wag,
Ben Korn and
Lucas Spiro who head into the weekend with nine wins.
More On MIT
• Coached by Thierry Lincou, MIT enters Friday night's match against the Mids with a 4-3.
• The Engineers opened the season by capturing 9-0 sweeps in each of their first-three matches against Boston University, Boston College and Northeastern. They have since lost three of their last four, dropping a 5-4 decision to Western Ontario, followed by back-to-back 9-0 losses to Harvard and Trinity. MIT, however, bounced back to post a 7-2 win over Brown this past Monday.
• Senior Aman Sanger has produced a 4-2 record at the #1 spot for the Engineers, while grad student Joe O'Connor is 2-4 at #2.
The Series
• Navy owns a 55-1 advantage in the series that began on Feb. 11, 1949 with a 9-0 Navy victory in Annapolis.
• The Mids won 55-consecutive matches before falling 6-3 in Annapolis on Nov. 22, 2019 in what was MIT's first win in the series.
• Navy stands 11-0 in neutral site matches against the Engineers.
More On Lehigh
• Lehigh, a club team, has played two matches to date, falling to Bucknell 9-0 and defeating Lafayette 6-3.
• The Mountain Hawks lost their No. 1, 2 and 9 matches, while earning wins were PJ Walsh at 3, George Bancroft at 4, Matthew Wellstead at 5, Luke Saviano at 6, Sammy Schutz at 7 and Ben Hayes at 8.
The Series
• Navy and Lehigh have previously met 17 times, with all 17 matches ending in favor of the Midshipmen.
• The series began with a 9-0 Navy victory on Jan. 24, 1976 and all 17 meetings have been 9-0 sweeps.
• The two programs last met on Jan. 30, 2011 in Annapolis.
What's Ahead
• Navy will step away from competition for approximately 5 weeks to focus on final exams and enjoy the holiday break before returning to the second week of January. Navy will face 18th-ranked Tufts in Annapolis on Jan. 11 (5:30 pm) in its first match of the 2022 calendar year.
### Go Navy ###
