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In its second season under head coach John Illig, the Bates College men's squash team duplicated its finish from the 2002 season. Illig, who also coached the women to their best finish in 2002 and 2003, led the Bobcats into the Hoehn Division of the National Intercollegiate Squash Racquets Association (NISRA) team championships for the third year in a row. The 12-7 squad once again impressed by finishing 14th, and had peaked at a 12th-place ranking in the country during the year. The Bobcats won the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin title by sweeping Colby in two matches and defeating Bowdoin, 7-2, in the only match between the two schools. Four of their 12 season victories came by 9-0 scores.
The Bobcats' future is bright, with all but two of players returning from last year. For the third consecutive year, co-captain Ben Schippers '04 (Brooklyn, N.Y.) will be the No. 1 player. His most dramatic win came over the U.S. Naval Academy, at the Team Nationals, in which the team score was knotted at 4-4 with his match yet to begin. After losing the first two games, Schippers won the next three to win his match and give Bates the win to lift the Bobcats to a 14th-place finish in the national rankings. Co-captain Chad Mountain '04 (Greenwich, Conn.) has played consistently at the top of the line-up for the last three years. Also returning is last year's No. 4 player, Rob Weller '05 (Penn Valley, Pa.), who is also a member of the tennis team. In addition to returning to the squash courts, last year's team MVP, Alex Wolff '05 (Lincoln, Mass.), will captain the soccer team as well. Guillermo Moronta '06 (Cambridge, Mass.), the first collegiate product of the Squashbusters program, will play an important role in the upcoming season.
Bates posted wins last season against prominent schools such as Stanford, Colgate, Navy, Hobart, Bowdoin, Franklin & Marshall, Colby, Wesleyan, Rochester and MIT. Bates also defeated top-ranked Princeton, which played only a couple of their regulars in the match.
Bates is in the process of building three new International courts in Merrill Gymnasium. The courts will include electronic scoring and have a lounge area where spectators can view all three courts. Also, two racquetball courts have been reconstructed for squash.
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Release Archive...
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 John Illig is in his 13th year as a collegiate squash and tennis coach and his second as men's squash coach at Bates. He has coached the Bates women for eight years. Illig has coached three All-Americans and two Wetzel Award-winners for the top women's player who started playing in college. He was also named U.S. Developmental Coach of the Year by the United States Olympic Committee in 2000. Illig came to Bates in 1996 following five years as head coach at Colby College. A 1986 graduate of the University of Rochester, he played three years of team tennis in Germany. He has through-hiked the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails. In 1998 he published Trail Ways, Path Wise, an Appalachian Trail narrative. |
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