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In Review

HIGHLIGHTSTops in Squash A senior earns collegiate squash’s top honor as the team hits the No. 1 spot during the season.
squashSQUASH SKILLS: Winner of the Skillman Award, Ryosei Kobayashi ’17 finishes his squash career as one of Rochester’s most decorated players. (Photo: Athletics and Recreation)

Ryosei Kobayashi ’17 was already one of the best to ever play squash at Rochester.

This winter, he took his place among the most decorated in Yellowjackets history after capturing the 2017 College Squash Association Skillman Award.

Intercollegiate squash’s highest honor, the award is given annually to a senior men’s squash player who has demonstrated outstanding sportsmanship during his entire college career. The award is named for former Yale coach John Skillman, who led the Bulldogs to multiple national titles in more than 40 years of leading the team.

Kobayashi, a business major from Yokohama, Japan, is the second Yellowjacket to win the honor. Benjamin Fischer ’12 was named the Skillman winner after the 2012 season.

The award was a capstone to a season in which the Yellowjackets were ranked No. 1 in the country for the first time in the program’s history.

Rochester was named to the top spot in late January, after defeating then top-ranked Trinity College.

The Yellowjackets’ previous best ranking was second in the country, which came after a loss to Yale in the 2015–16 national championship. That game marked the first appearance by Rochester in the title match in school history.

After a loss to Harvard that knocked the team out of the top spot, Rochester ended the 2016–17 season at No. 5 in the nation, recording 13 wins for the season—the second most wins in a single season in team history.