Teams: Women's Squash: Team Overview

• Barba selected All-NESCAC First Team

The Tufts University women's squash program has a rich history. The team's schedule includes New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) rivals and Ivy League powerhouses. The Tufts women's squash team plays an exciting winter schedule against teams such as Stanford, Brown, Trinity, Amherst and Williams. The women's team finished the 2006-2007 season ranked 23rd nationally.

Highlights from the 2006-07 season included a mid-season ranking of #17 and wins against Amherst and William Smith. Unfortunately, a number of setbacks rarely allowed the team to play its full line-up. However, the team had terrific road trips and was ably led by senior co-captains Jules Avrutin and Liz Thys. The Most Valuable Player, Thys finished her career with 39 wins, the fourth most in Tufts history. Jules Avrutin also had 26 career wins playing mostly at #1 and #2 over the four years. Sophomore Victoria Barba qualified for College Squash Association (CSA) Individual Championships. Super frosh Stefanie Marx led the team with 13 wins.

Last year, the team was ranked as high as #14 and finished the year at #16 in the Kurtz Division. The team graduated Rebecca Rice, Micela Leis, and Stephanie Gold. This year's tri-captains are Simone Grant, Victoria Barba and Jessica Herrmann. The tri-captains will ably lead a team that includes juniors Stef Marx, Laura Curren (abroad for the year), Katie Stork, Erin Bruynell and senior Caroline Choi. Super-soph Val Koo led the team with 12 wins. First-year student Mercedes Barba joins her sister Victoria. The top of the team is expected to include both Barba sisters, Koo and Marx. Sophomores Erin ODonnell and Sairah Mahmud are inexperienced, but have great speed on the court.

The team practices at Tufts, Belmont Hill and Harvard. In recent years the team also has made January trips to Bermuda, Bahamas, Grand Cayman and Canada. The team also prepares with on-court pressure drilling, tactical situational games and technical work. Non-racquet and off-court practice includes ghosting, interval training, strength and conditioning and flexibility training. The team also works with mental toughness training and tactical court awareness exercises. In January 2009, the team will train in Grand Cayman. The holistic training philosophy for the Jumbos involves emotional, tactical/cognitive, physical, and technical training. The Tufts program is centered on complete development of the student-athlete and a healthy relationship with communication between players and coaches.

As members of the NESCAC, Tufts is part of the nation's most competitive small college conference academically and athletically. The NESCAC is a group of highly selective liberal arts colleges and universities that share an academics-first philosophy for intercollegiate athletics. Tufts squash players train both on and off the court to be future leaders. Recent graduates have gone on to graduate, business and medical schools, as well as successful professional and business careers. Over the last three seasons, the team led all schools nationally in the number of scholar-athletes. Last year's CSA Scholar-Athletes were Thys and Micela Leis.

Doug Eng, the Director of Squash, holds three degrees from Tufts (BSChE 1984, MS in 1987 and PhD in 1990), and an EdD in sport pedagogy/psychology from Boston University. He was the assistant coach at Tufts in 1992-93 and has taught and coached tennis and squash for nearly 20 years. Eng holds certifications from the United States Squash Racquets Association (Level II) and the Professional Squash Association. He has worked with dozens of regionally and nationally ranked players. He has served on the board of several different regional and national organizations and committees in squash and tennis. Eng lectures and writes on sport sciences for squash and tennis organizations and magazines, and is an expert on sport psychology and coaching theory. Over the past two years, he has served as head coach of the men's tennis team and has previously also coached the women's tennis team.

Assistant Coach Kelsey Engman graduated from Bates College in 2007 where she played #1. Last year, she worked with both teams. This season, Kelsey primarily focus will be the womens team although she still finds time to help out with the mens team. Coach Engman will run most womens practices and Coach Eng will be running off-court duties.

Located right outside of Boston, Tufts offers a well-rounded collegiate experience to student-athletes. Within its picturesque small-college campus, Tufts is a major university with "an unprecedented diversity of programs, exceptional faculty and staff, and bright and talented students," according to President Lawrence S. Bacow. The Athletics Department sponsors a varsity program of 28 sports that is among the most competitive in the NCAA's Division III. Tufts finished 15th in the 2008 U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup, the award presented annually to the best overall collegiate athletics programs in the country. The University's proximity to a world class city renowned for its academic institutions is also a major draw.