A week after the Squash Club at Chelsea Piers hosted the concluding match of the global squash phenomenon that was the 7 Continent Challenge, 215 junior players descended on the complex for the 2013 U.S. Junior Bronze Squash Championships.
Entrants included those nationally ranked No. 65 and below, including a large number of first-time national championship participants.
With only four returning 2012 division winners and finalists all playing in an older age group, the tournament produced first time winners and finalists in each draw.
Khadijah Muhammad went undefeated in the five-player girls’ U19 round robin, dropping just one game in four matches to take the title. Runner-up Amelia Rudick gave Muhammad a close challenge losing to the eventual champion 3-1, and the only returning player, Precious Rooks, finished third.
The boys’ U19 final came down to No.2 seed James Michaelis and unseeded William Mendez, with Michaelis winning in four games despite conceding the first.
Top seed Vedaant Kukadia won five matches to take the boys’ U17 title, including a marathon five game semifinal against Squash Haven’s Mubarak Ouro-Aguy, and a four-game final against City Squash’s William Pantle.
The girls’ U17 saw the top two seeds eliminated in the semifinals at the hands of eventual champion, Nicole Windreich, and runner-up Caitlin Stern. Stern’s exhaustion got the better of her, as she went down to Windreich in three games after three previous five-game matches to get there. Windreich impressively completed her title run without losing a game.
Lilly Soroko, champion of the 2012 Bronze girls’ U13, added another age group title to her junior career after defeating Madison Chen in a four-game U15 final.
The tournament’s largest draw with 39 players, the boys’ U15, was won by Anton Boyer who defeated top-seed Alex Snape in a four-game semifinal and then went on to win the final in four games against George Taylor.
In the boys’ U13 final, Vaughan Siker battled from two games down against Charles Merrill to win the final three close games and take the title.
Grace Rorke won the 27-player girls’ U13 without losing a game after defeating top seed Sydney Bednar in the semifinals and Rachel Chen in the final.
The girls’ U11 featured a five-player round robin with each player participating in their first Junior Bronze Championship, which Kristen Weil won after going 3-1 with a close challenge from runner-up Karla Dominguez.
Boys’ U11 finalists, Robby Friz and Freddy Manning, both endured five-game semifinals to reach the title match, which Friz won in four games.
The Junior Bronze Championships was the nineteenth and final national championship of the 2012-2013 season.
