When Maura Myers, head coach of the GW women’s squash team, makes a prediction about the season, she’s probably right.

Plenty of coaches have big plans. But Myers has a track record of getting the job done.

Last year, Myers said she believed the team had the ability to jump divisions from D to C, where they would face tougher competition. This year, forget the C division – GW is looking to the B division.

Last year, she said the team could capitalize on its strong showings against competitors like the University of Connecticut to have better recruitment options. This year, all five of the freshmen were recruited, and the team is taking a shot at tougher schools they’ve never played before. “We’re just really excited,” Myers said of this year’s team. “I think we’re going to upset some schools that maybe don’t see us coming, and I think it’ll just help our recruiting even more. We’re more on the radar now then we ever were. We can’t really wait for our first match just to see how we actually line up against other teams.”

And the changes she’s brought to the six-year-old program are appreciated by the players old enough to remember the squash team in the first few seasons of its inception.

“You can’t even compare years. The first year I got here, I think more than half the team had never played squash before. It wasn’t competitive at all; it had the atmosphere of a club sport and half the practice was sitting around and talking,” senior Rachael Rayfield said.

The Colonials will face Virginia and Georgetown in November, and a tough weekend in February when they’ll face Tufts University, and Bowdoin and Colby Colleges.

“We’re going to be playing a lot of new teams, and I don’t think anybody’s expecting us to be much better. So we get to surprise everybody,” Rayfield said.

Coupled with that mindset, Myers and her team believe several changes to the team’s dynamics will propel them through the season.

“We started lifting this year twice a week, and I feel an increase in my overall stability. I’ve seen a huge difference,” senior Elaine Purcell said. “We’ve also stepped up with conditioning on Fridays, and then our coach kicks our ass every other day.”

The five freshmen, all recruited, bring a new intensity to the team – and Myers said the quality of the newcomers is already turning heads.

“We look really good. All of our recruits are pretty well-known – I talked to other coaches and they all know who they are, so we’re just really excited,” she said. “I think we really set a good foundation for what kind of program we wanted to have.”