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2016-2017 NorCal Squash Association League Dinner

Dear Squash Community,

As you may have noticed by the blocked off court times and sweaty strangers roaming around in your squash clubs, NorCal is lucky to have a fabulous team squash league spanning from Marin to Sacramento. The season comes to a head April 28-30 at the Bay Club Redwood Shores (formally PAC) when the top teams from each region compete to be crowned top of their division.

Please join us for some great squash, and a free dinner on April 28 open to all NorCal Squash members at Club 77 (Bay Club Redwood Shores). We will be celebrating you, our members, plus three special guests who won the juniors USA Championships. Space is limited to 125 people, so please rsvp to norcalsquash2017@gmail.com. Additional tickets for the Friday dinner for spouses, friends, and any other companions not paying NorCal Squash dues can be purchased for $20.

We hope to see you there,

the NorCal Squash Commissioners

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Passing of Dr. Jim McCole

Dear NorCal Squash Community:

**UPDATE: The celebration of Jim McCole’s life event will be held at Marin Art and Garden Center on Sunday February 26th at 2pm

Please come celebrate our love of Jim !!**

We see many friends come and go in our small squash community, but the passing of certain icons are worthy of well deserved reverence and remembrance.

Dr. Jim McCole, whose warmth, generosity and infectious zest for life we have missed recent of several years unfortunately passed earlier this week.

Jim’s love of people and generous nature as a healer and a friend continue to leave a void amongst us lucky recipients.

Even after his passing, his positive energy affects us per Jim’s request “no funeral service” rather ” A Celebration of His Life” event will take place on the last weekend of February.

Details will be posted on this FB page https://www.facebook.com/norcalsquash/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel and Norcalsquash.org website.

RIP Dr. Jim McCole 1945-2017

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Norcal News Tournaments Uncategorized Women

HOWE CUP 2016

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The California Golden Girls thank the NorCal Squash Association for their support of the two Howe Cup teams who traveled to Stamford CT in November. Along with support by SF Bay Club, registration fees were covered. This substantially defrayed the overall cost for each player. We enjoyed the tough East Coast competition and the warm social activities. Many of us reconnected with squash friends from previous Howe Cups and younger team members reconnected with former college teammates. Everyone was very enthusiastic and looks forward to growing the women’s presence here in California. Thanks again for your generous support and please spread the word for women of all squash levels to join in. This year we sponsored two B teams but our future goal is an A, C and D team as well.

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World class exhibition match here at Bay Club Santa Clara between Miguel Rodrigues (World #8) against Simon Rosner (World #12)

world class exhibition match here at Bay Club Santa Clara between Miguel Rodrigues (World #8) against Simon Rosner (World #12)
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Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Bill Lane 2016 PSRA Service Award

Join fellow PSRA members for a special evening on Saturday, October 8.
The PSRA board will honor Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Bill Lane with the 2016 PSRA Service Award in recognition of his many contributions to squash in Philadelphia and in particular his tireless efforts and leadership in developing and managing interclub junior league play, along with nurturing a love for the game in hundreds of Philadelphia Cricket Club players.
Bill will receive his award on court during the evening session of the U.S. Open, after conclusion of the 5:30pm match.
PSRA members receive a 10% discount off all tickets for the day’s matches, using discount code PSRA16 at checkout. Matches for Saturday, October 8 run from 12:00pm through 9:00pm, and feature stars such as world No. 1’s Mohamed Elshorbagy and Noor El Sherbini. It promises to be a special day celebrating Philadelphia squash at it’s best.
http://www.usopensquash.com/tickets/

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Norcal News Uncategorized Women

NorCal Peninsula League

Dear squash players,

The NorCal Peninsula League is looking to grow the number of teams and get some fresh faces in for this season. The peninsula league runs from approximately end of September to March and involves bi-weekly matches at Bay Club Redwood Shores, Bay Club Cupertino, Bay Club Santa Clara, and Stanford University.

The season culminates with playoffs for the top two teams in each division from the City, East Bay, Peninsula, and Sacramento leagues. Teams are co-ed and typically have 6 to 12 players, with 4 players needed for each match. We are looking for more players and teams across all divisions.

The division criteria are:
1st Division players must be above a US Squash ranking of 4.50. Substitutes must have a ranking above 4.3. And play on Thursday night.
2nd Division players must have a US Squash ranking of 4.00 – 5.00. Substitutes must have a ranking above 3.7. And play on Tuesday night.
3rd Division players must have a US Squash ranking of 3.20 – 4.30. Substitutes must have a ranking above 3.0. And play on Wednesday night.
4th Division players must be below a US Squash ranking of 3.30.
No substitutes are allowed.

If you are interested in joining a team or being a captain/co-captain please email me directly at steven.friedland@gmail.com.

Also you must be a US Squash member in order to join, which means that it does involve paying for the year long membership with US Squash. You have until next Friday to join a team, and we would also like to know by Monday if you are interested in being a captain.

Thank you,
Steven Friedland

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History of NorCal Squash Association

The Northern California Squash Racquets Association was founded sometime in the 60’s, mainly to formalize league play between the squash clubs in San Francisco (mostly the University Club and the Olympic Club). Norcal was a major part of the Pacific Coast SRA, a now-dormant organization that represented the interests of all the west-coast squash communities, including Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, Fresno, Denver, etc.

The peak of Norcal’s hardball era was probably hosting the US Nationals in 1983, which was held primarily at the now-defunct San Francisco Squash Club (Alex Eichmann’s club in SoMA, with 6 or 7 hardball courts, including a large gallery court). The draw for the Men’s A usually was limited to 128 entrants, and it was a major achievement to make it through seven rounds to win it. Side note: my brother won that tournament, defeating David Boyum in one of their many classic confrontations.

Around 1986 or 1987, a separate softball-focused organization was formed, called ISANC (International Squash Association of Northern California). ISANC had no affiliation with Norcal or with the USSRA, and there was initially not much overlap between the two associations, as there was a hardball crowd and a mostly separate softball crowd. The separation didn’t last long, as it became obvious that it was silly to have two associations for such a small community of players. So, the organizations merged in the late 80’s, with the ISANC officers taking on most of the officers’ roles in Norcal.

In the early 90’s, a foundation called the San Francisco International Squash Foundation (SFISF) was formed by Jack Seery, Reed Freyermuth, and Tom Friel, for the purpose of promoting the game in the Bay Area. The primary intention of SFISF was not to compete with Norcal – it wasn’t a membership-based organization – but rather to focus on promoting specific events, such as major professional events, as well as on promoting squash to schools, etc. After a few years, the SFISF became somewhat dormant. However, they had gone through the trouble of obtaining 501(c)3 status from the IRS and the FTB, allowing individuals to donate money to the SFISF and take a deduction on their taxe return for the donations.

So, in the late 90’s, the SFISF acquired all of the assets of Norcal, the three founding officers of the SFISF resigned, and they were replaced by the Norcal officers at the time. This means that Norcal is now a 501(c)3 organization, and as long as it maintains its tax returns, corporate filings with the State of California, etc., it will be able to retain that status.

More recently, the association has unofficially changed its name to Norcal Squash, and has begun to rejuvenate its core of volunteers. There are the beginnings of a resurrection of the league system that was the impetus for founding the association 30-odd years ago, and the future looks bright.

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West Coast represent at Regional Team Championships – 3rd overall and 1st in U-15 category.

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Contributed by Aisling Blake Fresh from some credible performances at the San Francisco Gold event held at Bay Club, University Club and Olympic Club last weekend eighteen players from up and down the West Coast traveled to Yale under the watchful eye of Head Regional Coach Gareth Webber along with Lauren Xaba and Aisling Blake.

The team had an early start Thursday morning meeting at SFO at 5.15a.m. but jet lag was a distant memory once they took to the courts on Friday morning. Overall the team put in a fantastic performance and without a doubt would take home the ‘spirit’ prize. From the coaches’ perspective the atmosphere among the team members and support they showed each other through every match was inspiring. We even had an incidence of 17 players waiting to go to dinner as the 18th player finished his match – they didn’t want to go without him! With such a team spirit it is easy to see why we came away with a 3rd place overall and an outright win in the U-15 division.

Hightlights included Serena Daniels and Avni Anand contesting the G U-15 final (Serena came out the winner in a very close battle of experienced squash), Adam Lichtmacher coming from a game down to secure 3rd place which set us up for a first ever Gold medal at the Regional Championships. The U-15 team in its entirety (including Vivek Sunkam and Mario Reifschneider) all contributed to this victory with Gordon Lam leaving nothing on the court as he played some super squash resulting in a 5th place finish.

The other categories had a slightly tougher time as the standard from the east coast – Pennsylvania in particular – was quite high. In both girls and boys U-17 we had representation from the Bay area and Santa Barbara with Dillon Miller, Kunal Valia, Aman Mital, Sabreen Abdelrahman and Jennifer Lee. Aman and Sabreen had the honor of being elected co-captains of the West coast team and did a great job of creating a joyful team spirit among the players.

At the younger end of the age group categories we had four players in each – again, representing the Bay area and Portland we had some serious contenders in the boys division. Rowan Schnebly from Oregon showed his grit and determination in getting through several close matches before succumbing to injury on the final day. Arav Bagwhati was the surprise that the east coast kids weren’t expecting, reaching the quarters (beating players above his seeding) and ending with a 5th place finish. Shivin Kumar was unlucky in the round of 16 to lose out in 5 games and once again, we had another injury as Shivin wasn’t able to complete the tournament after this match.

The exposure to the strength of the teams on the east coast was a good experience for the relative newcomer Raj Bapat. In the girls U-13 Shalini Agarwal and Anushka Gupta had to play each other on the final day for a final placing with Anushka taking the match this time. Roshni Pal enjoyed some close matches too in this division. While the other regions were a little more experienced in this division, it was very good exposure to competition for these younger girls.

A slightly tired but very happy team made their way back to SFO Sunday night, everyone involved should be very proud of their performance and as a team they ruled the cheering competition!

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Johnson and Blake Win Twenty-Fifth Bay Club Santa Clara Open

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Last weekend the Bay Club Santa Clara hosted their twenty-fifth Annual Bay Club Santa Clara PSA Open Championships–a PSA closed satellite event–which attracted top players from around the globe. The three-day event had 122 participants traveling from Egypt, England, Mexico, Ireland and the United States.

This year saw the first ever Women’s Professional draw. Aisling Blake, formerly World No. 21, from Ireland, and now teaching at Bay Club Redwood Shores, prevailed over Team USA junior player Mariam Kamal in a draw that consisted of Stanford team players and other top rated U.S. Juniors. A great showcase for women’s squash, this event was a highlight of the weekend.

In the men’s professional draw top seed Charlie Johnson, English world No. 146 and Bay Club San Francisco Pro, breezed through the early rounds and in the final faced tough Egyptian Mustafa Nabil who coaches out of Bay Club Cupertino. Mustafa Nabil had a tougher route to the final overcoming Mexican, Ricardo Lopez in the semis in 5 hard fought games. Mustafa put up some resistance against Charlie but it was Charlie who won the title for the second year in a row.

There were eleven other skill level draws competed for during the weekend from M2.0-M6.0 and W2.0-4.0. All results can be found here.

Thank you to the sponsors TE Connectivity and Harvest Management Partners, LLC.

Results can viewed here:
https://www.ussquash.com/serve/?program=myurl&myurl=modules%2Eussquash%2Ecom%2Fssm%2Fpages%2Ftournaments%2Finformation%2Easp%3Ftournament_id%3D6137%26

Thank you John Perry

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Menlo’s Morgan set for World Junior Squash Championships

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Menlo School senior Gabriel Morgan has been selected as a member of the U.S. Junior Squash Team, which will compete this summer at the prestigious World Junior Squash Championships in Bielsko-Baiala, Poland. Photo by Dale Walker.
Menlo School senior Gabriel Morgan has been selected as a member of the U.S. Junior Squash Team, which will compete this summer at the prestigious World Junior Squash Championships in Bielsko-Baiala, Poland.
The nine men and women representing the United States were officially announced by U.S. Squash. Morgan, a 2015 junior worlds player, is making his debut in team competition.
This year’s world event features athletes from 27 countries and begins with the annual Men’s and Women’s World Junior Individual Championships, Aug. 6-11, followed by the biennial Men’s World Junior Team Championships, Aug. 12-17.
Morgan, who is set to play for Princeton next season, is a veteran of international squash competition. Last summer, he played for Team USA at the 2015 World Juniors in The Netherlands.
Morgan’s selection to Team USA caps off his final year on both the U.S. and world junior squash circuits. A top-five finish last month at the U.S. National Junior Squash Championships (Closed) at Harvard University further cemented Morgan’s selection to the team.
“It was one of my goal’s this season to make Team USA and I am really excited to again play for the United States and compete at the World Juniors,” Morgan said. “It’s a huge honor and a tremendous privilege to represent your country, and I know my teammates are I are all pretty stoked to compete against the very best players in the world and make the USA proud.”
Morgan said the men’s team is exceptionally strong — all of the players have had success at the international level.
“Most importantly, we know what it takes to properly train and get ready for worlds and the dedication that’s required,” Morgan said. “It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but I think Team USA can go deep in both the individual and team competitions . . . we cannot wait to get to Poland.”
In 2012, Morgan became the first junior player from California to be crowned a national champion, winning the Boys U15 title. He is a three-time U.S. Squash All-American and a two-time U.S. Squash Scholar-Athlete. Morgan also is a four-year starter for the Menlo tennis team.
— Menlo School Athletics