Weekly sports roundup: squash teams still unbeaten

Still perfect: the men's and women's squash teams added to their undefeated records this week. The No. 3 men's team (7–0, 2–0 Ivy) was on the road at No. 5 Rochester on Saturday, where they came away with a 6–3 victory. They lost the top three matches but swept the 4–9 slots. The No. 5 women's team (8–0, 2–0 Ivy), which has yet to lose a single individual match so far this season, beat both Haverford and Tufts 9–0 in New Haven on Sunday. Both the men and the women face intrastate rival and traditional squash power Trinity at Payne Whitney on Wednesday. 

In other sports news this week (information from Yale Sports Publicity):

The No. 36 women's tennis team opened its regular season over the weekend by hosting the Yale Classic, a four-team event in which the Bulldogs bested Boston College, Cornell, and St. John's. Overall, the team was 18–4 in singles matches and 6–4 in doubles matches for the weekend; they swept all ten matches with St. John's on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the No. 59 men's tennis team (1–1) was starting its season in Blacksburg, Virginia, where they defeated Davidson 5–2 on Saturday but lost 7–0 the next day to their host, No. 38 Virginia Tech.

Forward Justin Sears ’16 had 20 points as the men's basketball team (7–8, 1–0 Ivy) opened its Ivy season with a 74–67 win over Brown on Saturday in New Haven. The Bulldogs had an 11-point lead with 6:50 to go in the game, but the Bears came back to within 1 point before Yale put it away.

The women's basketball team also opened conference play with a win over Brown, theirs a 70–53 victory in Providence on Friday night. Janna Graf ’14 led the scoring for the Bulldogs with 16 points.

The women's hockey team (6–10–2, 4–5–2 ECAC), fresh off an upset of No. 4 Harvard last week, surprised another nationally ranked team on Friday, taking No. 5 Clarkson into overtime and ultimately a 3–3 tie. Goalie Jaimie Leonoff ’15 had 52 saves in the game at Ingalls Rink. The next night, the team was back at the Whale to play St. Lawrence and managed another overtime tie, thanks to a third-period goal by Taylor Manchin ’17 that made it 1–1. The team plays Brown Friday night in the annual White Out for Mandi, a game at Ingalls that is a fund-raiser for the Mandi Schwartz Foundation and a tribute to Mandi Schwartz ’10, a Yale hockey player who died of bone marrow cancer in 2011.

On the road against the same two opponents as the women's team, the men's hockey team (9–4–4, 4–3–3 ECAC) came away with a win and a loss. Gus Young ’14 had both Yale's goals in a Friday night 3–2 loss to Clarkson. Saturday night, John Hayden scored twice in a 4–2 win over St. Lawrence. After rising to No. 8 in national polls last week, the Bulldogs returned to the No. 10 spot in this week's poll.

Yale's fencers were in action on Saturday for the first time since December 8, and they came away with victories over Sacred Heart. The women's fencing team, which had lost to Sacred Heart by one match last year, turned things around this year with a 14–13 win. Captain Lauren Miller ’15 won the deciding match in foil. The men's fencing team had an easier time, beating Sacred Heart 17–10, led by a 7–2 performance by the saberists.

The men's and women's track teams traveled to Hanover, New Hampshire, on Saturday for a tri-meet against Columbia and Dartmouth. Dartmouth dominated the men's competition with 75 points; Columbia was second with 47, and Yale was third with 35. Speedy freshman Marc-Andre Alexandre won both the 60-meter and 200-meter dashes. On the women's side, the Bulldogs had four first-place finishes but also came in third overall, with 52 points to Dartmouth's 56 and Columbia's 72. 

The gymnastics team opened its season at the University of New Hampshire, where they placed fourth in a four-team meet behind Minnesota, UNH, and Brown. Morgan Traina ’15 led the Bulldogs in all four events and finished fifth overall.