HAVERFORD, Pa. – Though it can often be stated when not coming up on the winning side of the ledger, Saturday morning's men's squash match between No. 40 Haverford College and 22nd-ranked Connecticut College turned on key points that had the Fords won those points, the outcome could have been much different than the visiting Camels' 9-0 triumph over their hosts.

Up and down the ladder the Fords (2-1) battled with ConnCollege's players who were playing in their opening match of the 2-12-13 season.

Charlie Michele (pictured) put up a fight at the No. 4 slot for the Fords, falling to Michael Coscarelli by a total of eight points (11-9, 11-9, 11-7). And Andy McComas played a strong match for Haverford at the No. 1 spot before yielding to Brian Mullen, 11-5, 11-5, 11-8.

At No. 8, Haverford's Jonathan Nguyen claimed his match's third game, 12-10, against Colin Forsyth but succumbed to the Camel in the fourth game to fall 3-1. Matt Rohn was two points away from wins twice in his loss at No. 9 (11-9, 11-2, 11-9) to Asa Welty.

Laurenson Ward at No. 3, Peter Boal at 5 and Robbie Thompson at No. 7 also played strongly in dropping at least one game by as few as two points.

"I'm proud of the way our guys battled throughout their matches today," said head coach Niki Clement. "A point here, not clipping the tin on another point, just finding a way to win those important points could have turned several of today's results around.

"I think this shows that we can compete with highly-ranked programs such as ConnCollege's," added the third-year coach. "But those important points that [ConnCollege] captured instead of us shows why they are a top-25 program. We're getting there, though, and we'll know we're reaching that ehelon when those points end up falling our way."

Haverford closes out the fall portion of its 2012-13 schedule with a home match against Swarthmore College on Saturday, Dec. 8.