Choate Hosts National High School Squash Tournaments
By Rohit Shankar ’09
News Staff Reporter
This past weekend, Choate’s squash courts were filled with players and schools from around the country, all of whom were participating in this year’s National High School Squash Tournament. For yet another year, all of the Choate squash courts and facilities were used as a satellite site. The tournament’s main site was at the Yale University located in nearby New Haven, Connecticut. A total of fifty-one boys and forty-three girls teams participated in this year’s event, raising the total number of teams participating from last year. The schools were mainly concentrated across the East Coast, with teams from as far as Pennsylvania coming to the event. “Though it was open to all schools across the nation, only schools from mainly the East Coast came. We know there are some teams out West, but we will get a good gauge of ourselves among the nation at the tournament,” said the Boys Varsity Squash Head Coach, Will Morris, in the hours leading up to the start of Choate’s first match. Overall, the tournament was set to be an exciting weekend of competitive squash in both the girls and boys divisions, with both Choate teams looking to make strong showings in the action.
The set-up for the tournament was as follows. Squash officials came together and created different seeds for all the teams participating. In doing so, in both the boys’ and girls’ brackets the teams were divided into different eight-team divisions based on the strength of each team heading into the tournament. In the boys’ bracket, there were a total of six different divisions containing national powerhouse William Penn Charter School as the number one seed in the first division. Choate was seeded fourth in the second division. On the other hand, the girls’ bracket only contained five divisions. The top seed was the Greenwich Academy A Squad and the Choate girls were seeded third with a tough task to face the number two overall seed Episcopal Academy. All team’s involved in the tournament were guaranteed to play three matches, no matter if they won or lost, one on each day of the tournament (February 8th-10th).
The tournament turned out to be a huge success, and was of great benefit to all teams involved. The Choate boys ended up finishing well, beating St. George’s school by a score of 4-3 in its first round match. However, they succumbed to the Haverford School by a score of 5-2, but rallied back to defeat a Tabor Academy team by a score of 4-3 in the 3rd place consolation match. Earlier in the year, Choate had lost to Tabor by an identical score. This meant that Choate finished in 11th place out of the fifty-one teams involved in the tournament. William Penn Charter School finished in first place, as most were expecting them to. The winners of the boys’ divisions are as follows: Division 1 William Penn Charter, Division 2 Haverford School, Division 3 St. Luke’s School, Division 4 Germantown Friends School, Division 5 the Brunswick School B Squad, and finally Division 6 The Nichols School.
On the Girls side, the Choate team had a much rougher go of things as they faced top competition on each day of the tournament. The first day presented a tough task, as Choate lost to Episcopal Academy by a score of 5-2. The second day wasn’t much better for the girls as they lost a heartbreaking match at the hands of St. George’s School. The last day of the tournament went much better for the girls as they defeated St. Paul’s school by a score of 4-3 to garner a 7th place finish overall in the tournament. Not much of a surprise was the dominant performance put on by the Greenwich Academy girls who swept through the tournament and came in first place. The finishers in each division of the tournament were as follows: Division 1 Green Academy A Squad, Division 2 Deerfield Academy, Division 3 Greenwich Academy B Squad, Division 4 Taft School, and Division 5 Mercersburg Academy.
The excitement was palpable on all days of the tournament as one could see photographers and eager spectators crowding the grounds at both Yale and Choate in an effort to cheer on the participants. It was a great experience for both Choate teams and it left both with much to be proud of.
Tucker Bryan ’08 reaches for a backhand rail. PHOTO/Will Morris
