The 2010 U.S. High School Team Squash Championships took place February 5-7 at the Brady Squash Center on the campus of Yale University. Now in its seventh year, the tournament boasted a record field of 125 teams and over 1,100 players, once again making it the largest squash tournament in the world.
Teams from around the country competed for national titles in nine divisions over the weekend. Due to the growth of this event, play took place at three venues: Yale University, Choate Rosemary Hall and The Miss Porters School.
Episcopal Academy (PA) and Greenwich Academy (CT) continued to build upon their respective dynasties as they steamrolled through the draws to capture the Division 1 titles at the 2010 U.S. High School Team Squash Championships. Episcopal dropped only three individual matches on the way to winning their second consecutive Boy’s championship while Greenwich Academy was even more dominant, losing only one individual match, to capture the Girl’s top trophy for the third consecutive year.
US High School Squash Championships
From the perspective of a rising star in Division 1
By Alisha Maity
High School Nationals represent the epitome of team spirit and great squash. All teams work hard in order to show off their talent at the world’s largest squash team tournament. The squash players from the all-girls Baldwin School, located in Bryn Mawr (PA) were able to exceed expectations. Our fantastic run this year was led by Baldwin squash pro Karen Kronemeyer, assisted by Bruce Kelly, who both helped us become one of the strongest girls’ teams in the country. The Baldwin squash team has remarkable sportsmanship, great depth, and exceptional team spirit. In addition to talent on the squash court and in the spirit of academic excellence fostered by Baldwin, six of our players were recipients of the Scholar-Athlete Award for the 2008/2009 season. Our team members include Co-captains Alexandra Sawin and Hilary Gray, Marina Crowe, Tiffany Hau, Selena Maity, Ryan Morgan, Maya Patel, Caroline Sawin, Samantha Shein, Alexa Tzarnas, and me.
Our team has improved dramatically since its inception in 2000. As a young team with no squash courts at our school prior to the 2008/2009 season, we practiced at four different locations in the area. In 2008, our new athletic center finally provided us with our own squash courts, making it more convenient for players and also strengthening the unity of our team. In 2007/2008, we had our first winning season and placed 3rd in Division II at Nationals, a high honor for our emerging team. Last year, we placed 3rd in the Philadelphia area Inter-Academic (Inter-Ac) League and moved up into Divison I at the High School National Championships, where we came in 7th. This season we were able to win the Inter-Ac title by finishing undefeated in this league. This victory was especially sweet as two of our strongest opponents in the league were Episcopal Academy and Penn Charter which came in 2nd and 3rd, respectively, last year at Nationals.
After our regular season ended, we looked forward to the High School Nationals to face teams from outside our area. On the Friday morning of the tournament, the bus loaded with snacks galore, heavy luggage, and varying colors of squash bags, we headed out to Yale University. As the No. 3 seed in Division I, we were filled with high hopes for the exciting weekend. Our first match was against Greenwich B Team, a team we had barely beaten last year 4-3. This year we swept 3-0 at all positions for a match score of 7-0 with noteworthy victories from both Ryan Morgan and Hilary Gray.
On Friday night, we followed our yearly tradition by dining at Bangkok Gardens, ravenously devouring spring rolls and pad thai. The next morning we played in the quarterfinals against Taft, another school we had played the previous year. This year every match was a hard fought contest, ultimately leading to a team victory of 5-2. Alexandra Sawin raised her usual exceptional level of play even a notch higher to beat Taft’s No. 1 player, 3-0. The two players battled on the center glass court, dropping, driving, and diving with blinding speed and skill. Caroline Sawin also played a tough match, and although she lost 2-3, she displayed an impressive show of squash smarts. After the match against Taft, our Baldwin team secured a spot in the semifinals, a place where no Baldwin squash team had ever ventured before!
Our semifinal match was against Lawrenceville, a tough but worthy opponent. Although we had lost to Lawrenceville twice before in school matches, we hoped to finally defeat their team. As Saturday evening approached, we had a group huddle amidst the clamor in the Brady Squash Center. While we had achieved our initial goal of being one of the top four squash teams in the nation, we hoped to make it to the finals. But we were not able to succeed. Each member of the Lawrencville team fought tenaciously, and they defeated us 5-2. However, we still maintained our enthusiasm for the rest of the tournament and wished the laudable Lawrenceville team luck in the finals. As a team we dined at our usual Baldwin eatery, Sullivan’s, and prepared ourselves for the hard match the next day to determine 3rd place.
The teams at the Brady Squash Center that showed up Sunday morning had worked extremely hard to make it to where they were. With emotions running high and squash balls whizzing by, the whole place was buzzing with activity. For the last time as the ’09-’10 Baldwin Squash Team, we performed our warm-up rituals and banded together to face a familiar opponent. After traveling nearly 200 miles to New Haven, we played our neighboring school, Penn Charter, in our final match. Although we had not made it to the finals, we were extremely motivated to finish strong. Each Baldwin player played her match with unbridled passion and heart. We finished with a heartbreaking 3-4 loss, with wins from Alexandra Sawin, Maya Patel, and Selena Maity. All the individual matches that we lost were extremely close. While we did not win this final school match, we knew we had played our hardest and ended up with a 4th place finish in Division I.
High School Nationals are the culmination of the effort of an entire season. We practiced exceptionally hard this year and were rewarded at this final team tournament. Lengthy court sprints, tedious drills, and lots of Baldwin School passion added up to a fantastic season that surpassed all original expectations, both for the team and for individual players. Our co-captain and lone senior, Alexandra Sawin, was one of the most important elements of our team, offering advice and help whenever needed and leading by her outstanding example and supreme talent. Alex was almost undefeated in the regular season and won all of her matches in the Nationals. Maya Patel also had a near perfect winning record in the regular season. Selena Maity had a remarkable 20-0 record including her matches in the regular season, at the Mid-Atlantic Squash Association (MASA) tournament and the Nationals. However, the spirit of squash is not just about wins and losses but the dedication to the sport, which was exhibited by all members of the team. We congratulate all high school teams that participated at High School Nationals on a great tournament and one of the best experiences any player could ask for!
It never gets old!!!
By Karen Schmidt-Fellner
When walking into the hallowed halls of Yale University, there is an aura that makes you want to stand tall, be proud and focus on the task at hand. Six years ago, Greenwich Academy walked into Payne Whitney Gym and did just that.
Though GA had been relatively successful in the prior years, winning the New England Interscholastic Tournament, which was then considered the Nationals, we had never really come across the nation-wide powerhouses from Philadelphia or Baltimore. But this time, we were going to face them…and this time we were focused on the task at hand and had our eye on the prize!
Literally though…in order to keep the team on course, I promised them that we would eat Ben and Jerry’s ice cream out of the trophy, if we could put a “W” in the finals column and bring home the hardware. Well, it worked. We ate Ben and Jerry’s from the trophy for the first two years of the Nationals.
In 2007, we met Episcopal Academy in the finals for the third time, but lost in a tight battle.
However, for the next three years we were not going to let go easily. We came to Yale prepared for battle each time. We were bonded, unified and ready for action in every match. We never rested on any laurels. We never looked too far ahead. We took one point at a time, one game at a time, one match at a time. We were in the moment at every moment. We coached one another. We pumped each other up for each and every match. We came to Yale with a purpose and that purpose was to get the job done!
As coach to this team, I have to say that they are truly amazing! They never take anything for granted and acknowledge the fact that everyone they play is “gunning” for a win. They know that their opponents have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so they must be patient, purposeful and tenacious. They work hard and persevere to the end!
The GA girls are just a treasure to coach. They are gracious, fair and have an amazing work ethic. They spend hours on court sharpening their skills, bettering their technique and focusing on proper court movement. They have the necessary “Fire in their belly” that makes true champions!
Overall, we all love the High School Team Nationals! We love coming to the hallowed halls of Yale and adore focusing on the task at hand after all the tireless hard-work that was put in all season long.
For us, winning never gets old, just a little tougher!
From Start-up to Division 1
Mt. Greylock—driven by it’s players to success
By Stephen Tifft
In the less than three years of its existence, the Mt. Greylock Regional High School squash team has achieved a level of success unprecedented for a public high school team, finishing among the top twenty teams in the nation each season. Williamstown (MA), home to Mt. Greylock, would seem to offer unlikely ground to nurture such sudden and impressive growth: a small town tucked away in the northwest corner of the state, Williamstown boasts no squash clubs nor resident professionals within two hours’ drive, and until relatively recently, the only squash to be seen was played by Williams College students and faculty. That began to change seven years ago, when Zafi Levy, the Williams squash coach (whose men’s and women’s teams perennially figure among the nation’s top ten college squads), began to give lessons to two or three local kids during his off-season. Over time his lessons and outreach clinics attracted more local students, and the older players began to show considerable success in junior tournaments.
The Mt. Greylock team, however, was wholly the players’ idea, and it is the kids themselves who for the past three years have arranged practices and challenge matches, raised money for uniforms, organized trips to compete against nearby private school teams, and entered the Mt. Greylock squad in the U. S. National Team Squash Championships. (Levy is prevented from serving as coach by the demands of his own college season, and Blair Dils—Levy’s assistant coach, who also teaches and coaches soccer at Mt. Greylock Regional High School—was free to serve as an advisor only on occasion for one season.) Perhaps the biggest challenge in forming the team has been the small number of local players old enough to compete, and each year the lineup has of necessity included one or two middle-school players, and girls as well as boys.
Yet despite such obstacles, Mt. Greylock met with success from the time of its inauguration in December 2007. Over the past three years, the team has compiled a winning record in matches against the varsity boys’ teams at such established and well respected schools as Deerfield, Tabor, Millbrook, and Salisbury, and with only two months’ experience to its credit, the Mt. Greylock team finished second in Division II (18th overall) at the 2008 Nationals at Yale. In 2009, led by seniors Matt Baker-White and Sarah Crosky and juniors Taylor Foehl, Sam Sokolsky-Tifft, and Stephan Danyluk, the team moved up to Division I, and placed a surprising 11th. This season, it was expected that Mt. Greylock would struggle to overcome the loss of Baker-White and Crosky (now playing as freshmen on the varsity squads of Bates College and Brown University, respectively), but younger players—Ben and Nick Krant, Nick Zimmerman, and Carlos Ames—have successfully filled the gaps, and last month Mt. Greylock once again finished in 11th place at the National Championships at Yale. That a small, home-made squad could achieve such unlooked-for success is a testament to the initiative of a handful of junior players who love the game, and a sign that the appeal of high-school squash has begun to spread beyond its traditional bastions among the elite private schools of the Northeast.
“Let’s All Smile for John Dale”
By Robert Galluccio
The squash world and New Canaan (CT) based St. Luke’s School lost a great talent and beloved friend with the recent passing of John Dale, at age 33, following a long battle against cancer. John won many British National junior titles in several age groups, and was one of the best upcoming junior players in the world of squash. He reached a career high ranking of 84 in the world, and was positioned to become a world champion squash player before he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Following his first recovery, John made his way back into squash by moving into several coaching positions in the greater New York Metropolitan area and eventually coming to St. Luke’s.
As St. Luke’s Squash Coach, John took the team to its first national high school tournament in 2006 and provided the focus and leadership that eventually led to the school’s first “Division B” national championship title. John’s experiences as a world-class player, and characteristics as a genuine human being, spread throughout the entire team and those around him. St. Luke’s senior and captain Cameron Wilson wrote, “I still don’t think I’ve met anyone as genuinely happy to be involved in squash and all that it entails as John. I can still remember some of the things he used to do in practice. He would juggle the ball with his feet, hit the perfect length, and find the nick from anywhere on the court!” John’s great sense of humor and love for the game of squash will go unsurpassed.
To honor John’s memory at the 2010 high school nationals, the St. Luke’s boys’ and girls’ teams wore shirts and shouted chants in John’s remembrance. Both teams will always miss John’s polite manners and positive energy both on and off the court. Not only was John a respected coach by his players, he was also a caring and compassionate man. His beaming smile will be forever missed
