Navy News and Notes: 01/14/2013

Football may be off for the next seven months or so but there is still a lot of sports going on at the Naval Academy. Here are a few items of note from around the courts, fields, and mats.

Mixed fortunes for basketball

Both the men and the women started Patriot League play over the weekend with games against Lafayette. While the girls opened with a 62-44 win which provides early validation of their preseason number one poll spot, the men were unable to overcome a couple of big Leopard runs and the game slid away to a 64-47 final.

Analysis: Even with a 7-8 record in non-conference play women's coach Stefanie Pemper was high on her team coming into the game. The addition of teams like Iona and Marquette to the schedule proved to be excellent preparation as the girls put together a 23-4 run early then turned on the cruise control. They always say to schedule at the level you want to complete and by using that method the Mids got a jump on the rest of the Patriot League this season.

Navy Squash is pretty good

The Navy squash team is ranked 16th in the country and split their matches over the weekend 1-1. The loss will not affect the ranking too much as it was to 9th ranked Columbia.

Analysis - There are probably not that many readers out there who aware that Navy even has a squash team or even know what the game is. Think of a more technical version of racquetball which is played at a mind boggling speed by athletes with some of the best reactions and hand-eye co-ordination out there and you are getting close. Squash is a much underrated sport in the US, but it is huge in other parts of the world and it is one of those sports which need an Olympic place to grow in popularity. For the Mids to be ranked and competing at this level with teams who play a lot of foreign born players is exceptional and the players should be proud of everything they have achieved this season so far.