www.ma-squash.org Fall 2006 MSRANewsMSRANewsMSRANews Massachusetts Squash Racquets Association Newsletter President’s Letter The smell of fresh baked apple pie A Clean Sweep at the Howe Cup! fills my house…I had to wait an hour for a by Kara Kardon frost delay on the golf course last Well, it just doesn’t get any better for Beantown women’s squash than the weekend…and the Red Sox are already Boston sweep of the 2006 Howe Cup played October 19–22 at the Meadow Mill hibernating for the winter. Ahhh, it must Athletic Club in Baltimore! Not only did our A, B, and C teams emerge victorious, but be the beginning of another squash sea- our own Wendy Ansdell and Hope Prockop were awarded the Sportsmanship and son. In fact it is! As I write this letter, the Achievement MSRA league season is in its first week, awards respectively. with a full 74 teams poised for action. The tournament was This is always an exciting time for local run wonderfully by squash players as many of us work off our Baltimore hosts, the rust and get back to the sport we love. and a great time was Your MSRA board has been busy plan- had by everyone! ning another eventful year, and we hope All the women at the you all take advantage of all the squash tourney were green activities Massachusetts has to offer. with envy of the As you’ll see in this newsletter, the depth of the players squash U.S. Open once again returns to from Boston!! Many Boston November 13–16. This year it’s thanks to the MSRA Boston B Howe Cup Players (L–R): Szilvi Sombati, Meredith Johnson, bigger and better than ever, with a new for sponsoring all Wendy Irwin, Bry Roskoz, and Kara Kardon venue and virtually all the top players in five teams again this the world competing. Never before has year. Boston assembled this level of talent in 130 women from 10 cities participated in this year’s tournament, 25 of us from our fair city. To make this good news bet- Boston. Boston sent two C teams to Baltimore to compete, with C1 finishing first and ter, the MSRA has arranged for a 50% C2 finishing third. The C1 team included last-minute sub Beth Rasin (1), Beth Collins discount off all tickets for Monday, No- (2, UClub) Betsy Hargreaves (3, Maugus), Sabrina Davies (4, Maugus) and Lucy vember 13 as well as a 10% discount for Bradley (5, Maugus). The C1 team finished the weekend completely undefeated, but all other sessions. Details are in this is- nonetheless managed to create a sue. I hope you all get out to see and wonderfully tense final match on learn from the best. Sunday morning versus a strong In addition to supporting the pro tour- New Jersey team. Sabrina and Lucy naments, the MSRA is also supporting had won their matches and the two local players interested in representing Beths were defeated, leaving the Massachusetts on the national stage. As deciding match in Betsy’s hands. we’ve done for many years, we’re send- The knee brace Betsy wore as a ing five woman’s teams to compete in result of an injury sustained earlier the annual Howe Cup. I’m sure they’ll in the tourney gave some in the make us proud, as they always have in audience cause for concern. But the past. New this year is a men’s team Betsy managed to keep her win- competition being held in Hartford on De- ning streak alive in just three games, cember 8–10. Please let a board mem- using long drives to keep her de- ber know if you’re interested. termined opponent in the rear of In other exciting tournament news, the court. the MSRA, along with Head, is sponsor- Boston C2 was comprised of Peg Sestrich (1, Concord-Acton), Maria Mayorga ing our first-ever tournament Grand Prix, (2, CRFC), Bernadette Dixon (3, CRFC), Dominique Farinaux-Dumas (4, Concord-Acton, (continued on page 2) (continued on page 6) MSRA Summer League won by Northeastern Huskies by Sam Magruder, Summer League Coordinator In their inaugural season, the Northeastern Huskies, led by Captain Michael Prince, won the 2006 MSRA summer league competition. The results were very close, in part because the top three teams each lost to one of the others. In week 3, Northeast- ern defeated the Harvard Club 4-1, with the sweep prevented by a 5-game victory by Bill Buker over Michael Prince. This match also featured the closest decision of the season, Steve Portela over Peter Papesch by 3-2. Three games were decided 15-14 and the other two by 15-13! In week 5, the Harvard Club visited the Boston Racquet Club, coming away with a 4-1 win, featuring strong performances by Adam Vartikar, Aaron Rosenthal and Moe Masoud. In week 8, Northeastern took on the BRC and lost 3-2. There were three 3-0 decisions, two of which went to the BRC (Josh Howland and Simon Shelley), and the other to the undefeated Huskies #1, Gifford Sommerkamp. The winning margin in the 8-6 win was recorded by Coalter Powers even while losing 3-2. Team Points % of points Won Northeastern University Huskies 33 73.3% Harvard Club 32 71.1% Boston Racquet Club 29 64.4% Boston Sports Club-Waltham 23 51.1% Cambridge Racquet-Silhouettes 19 47.5% Maugus Club 21 46.7% Tennis & Racquet Club 21 46.7% University Club 16 40.0% Union Boat Club 11 24.4% Cambridge Racquet-Butterflies 6 13.3% The 10-team league featured 96 players in at least one match. Noting the performance of the captains, Carl Cummings of the BRC played only once himself but organized a record 15 players for a default-free season. Merrill Martin also led his Maugus team to a default-free season, the only other team to accomplish this feat. The two Cambridge Racquet Club teams were almost perfect; Harold Helson’s Butterflies were unable to field a fourth player in Week 7, and Jay Rogers and the Silhouettes were perfect until the 9th week, when his number #1 got lost trying to find the Harvard Club. Bill Keevan did a good job for his Boston Sports Club-Waltham team in his first year as a captain. There were several notable performers among the players. Steven Portela of Northeastern was the only competitor in the League to record six wins, while playing 7 of the 9 weeks. At five wins were undefeated Gifford Sommerkamp and Tim Heneroty for Northeastern, and Bill Buker and Aaron Rosenthal of the Harvard Club. Captain Mark Cendron and Moe Masoud of the Harvard Club, Jeff Brown of T&R and Steve Neumeier of the University Club all went 4-0 for the summer. In part due to the leveling effect of the adjustable handicap system, the only other players with at least three wins to go undefeated were Simon Shelley from the Boston Racquet Club and Rich Schafer from the Maugus Club. President’s Letter (continued from page 2) with six tournaments lined up for your squash pleasure. Compete to win points in each event across 9 different divisions and see if you’ll be our first Grand Prix winner. There are lots of prizes up for grabs as well as the all-important bragging rights the winners will always have. Outside of tournaments, the MSRA has already held a free referee clinic this year, which by all accounts was educational for all who participated. Our thanks to Sharon Brady of the Harvard Club and MSRA board member Nat Lovell for putting this on. Continuing a benefit we started last year, we’ll also be offering free squash clinics this year hosted by the best of our local pros. Be sure to watch for these announcements and take advantage of a truly valuable member benefit. I mentioned in last year’s fall letter that the MSRA was working closely with the USSRA on refining their Rail Station software to make it suitable for our use. I’m happy to announce the enhancements are complete and Rail Station will be the engine where all our league and tournament match results are recorded. We’ve also sanctioned all MSRA leagues with the USSRA, which means all league matches count towards your local and national rating and rankings. You’ll be able to access all this fun and valuable information through our own web site (www.ma-squash.org) and track how you compare to your squash playing peers. Good luck. Seeing ratings and rankings calculated at the national level is, of course, nothing new for juniors, and that practice will continue. Tom Poor and his dedicated volunteers have again outdone themselves with plans for the upcoming season. For those of you (like me) who started playing squash later in life, I can only envy all the opportunities afforded our juniors. Best of luck to the juniors this season and we hope to see a few of you on the courts at a U.S. Open soon! —Eric Godes, MSRA President [email protected] 2 MSRANews Fall 2006 So You Want To Be a Referee? This season the MSRA is offering its members the chance to be assessed at two upcoming tournaments in Massachusetts (see page 4 for details). If you’re interested in refereeing or are already a certified referee and what to learn more, read on… Before you can be assessed, you should already be Club Referee certified.