Categories
Norcal News Schools Tournaments Women

Olympic Club Women’s Team vs. Stanford Varsity team

The Olympic Club women’s squash team played their second annual match against Stanford’s Varsity team on Saturday, February 20. The OC team traveled to Stanford’s campus in Palo Alto for Stanford’s only home match of the year. It was a tough match and the OC team had a loss of 8-1. Pia Trikha won her match in three games at the number five spot. Jesse Pacheco lost her match in four games at the number one slot, and Toby Eyre lost in a close five game match at the number two spot. Stanford has an especially strong team this year and finished 6th in the country at nationals held at Yale this past weekend. We look forward to playing them again next year!

contributed by Lauren Patrizio Xaba, SquashDrive

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Categories
Juniors Norcal News Schools

Letter home from Bransten Ming:

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As Bransten highlights a few things that he learned so far from playing college ball: The biggest difference between playing junior squash, and college squash is the mentality. Unlike juniors, where you’ll get an easy match here and there, college squash is a much more intensified version of junior squash. Literally every person is a strong player, everyone can hit the ball well and everyone is fit. It really just boils down to how mentally tough you are, and how confident you’re feeling on any given day. As for playing on a team, it is so much fun. It’s intense, passionate, vigorous, you name it. It’s such a great feeling playing for not only yourself, but your teammates as well. Entering college squash is so refreshing because it brings an incredible team aspect into the sport, something that us west coasters don’t know a whole lot about. Without a doubt, the team is the best part of my college experience. We are all very close. We eat together, live together, and go out together. Another great aspect of college squash is the diversity. Just my team alone represents over 10 countries, including: US, Egypt, Singapore, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Sweden, Guayana, Columbia, India, Ireland, and Canada. Playing all the other schools is great because you get to play people from all around the world. The Drexel team is lead by head coach and ex world number 1, John White. He’s an outstanding tactical coach, and one of the best hitting partners one could ask for. He is assisted by Kelsey Engman, who also is a great coach/mentor. Together, they are always there for the team no matter the circumstances. I am so grateful to call them my coaches. We are currently ranked number 9 in the nation. Looking forward, we are looking to break the top 8 soon so we can make it into the division A nationals. You can follow our results on collegesquashassociation.com and our instagram page @drexelsquash. Jay Kim Norcal Squash Association “Keep it straight”

Categories
Schools

Watch Bransten Ming’s Collegiate Matches

vs. Princeton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFR3nBzbeNw

vs. Penn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErshYtS-jS4&feature=youtu.be

vs. F&M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggk-foyG6yY

Categories
Schools Tournaments Women

Congrats to the Cal Bears in the East Coast who dominated on court today. The girls are currently undefeated!

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Categories
Juniors Schools

NorCal Squash High School Championships

Nuev School Team with Jon Perry, Gareth Webber and Kim Clearkin
Nueva School Team with Jon Perry, Gareth Webber and Kim Clearkin

Report Courtesy of Kim Clearkin, Bay Club San Francisco Squash Director

This past weekend, March 27-29, the inaugural NorCal High School Team Championships took place at Bay Club Santa Clara in Northern California. Twelve school teams participated in an action-packed weekend of squash, culminating in a closely fought final between teams from Los Gatos Squash Club and a Mission Valley Team. Mission Valley HS won 4-3.

It has been a long road to put together a school based event in Northern California. No school in NorCal has their own squash courts and so school teams rely on private clubs to support their school program initiatives. Eight of the teams were comprised of players from one school, four teams were club-based.

Nueva School was the standout pure High School Team and received an award for best high school team comprising players all from their school. Nueva is the only School in Northern California to incorporate squash into their school program. The idea to start a squash program was batted around for a few years, but only really took shape when a local squash director (Kim Clearkin) stepped in and gave a presentations to the school. The school’s squash players were excited to reap the rewards today as they finished as the best team fielding players from just one school.

“To develop from a group of mostly just curious beginners—some of whom had never seen a squash court before—to a successful squash team in just two years has been an interesting and rewarding experience,”
Juliette Love, Nueva team captain and occasional assistant coach, said.
 “Last year, we created both a middle school and high school squash team at the Nueva School. After two seasons, I think I can say that squash has been fully integrated into the sports scene at Nueva,” explained Love.

The Mission Valley team, which included some players from Mission Valley High School in Fremont, is excited because their school is not normally associated with sporting success.

Their players are hoping that this championship will breed a full high school team next season. Seniors Palak and Purvi Goel, who will both attend Brown University next year, are proud that they can leave the school knowing that the success of this weekend will mean that a squash club is now viable at their school.

Next season, NorCal squash hopes to grow the school’s program and create a fully sanctioned high school league, hoping to that will send school teams to the High School Squash Team Championships. This is a very real possibility if the participation and enthusiasm of this weekend can be fully harnessed.

“Creating a successful team also takes the support and involvement of players with experience. While some high-level players may think it’s a waste of their time to play squash with a group of novices, they’re missing the big picture,” Love continued. “By working to start a school team, experienced players can share their expertise and love of the game with those just beginning, and create something worthwhile.”

Thank you to the Bay Club Squash Directors, Jon Perry and Gareth Webber for helping to organize this event and to NorCal Squash for sponsoring.

NorCal Squash looks forward to building on this success and making 2015 even better.