Cate School’s varsity squash team played two informal round-robin squash matches with six members of the Santa Barbara Athletic Club and four of the most experienced students from the Santa Barbara School of Squash on Sunday Jan 18. The SBAC members prevailed seven matches to six, and the SBSOS students also won seven while only losing four.
In the highest ranked match of the day, Rohit Goswamy from Cate retrieved almost everything while adding enough winners to best Eduardo Mendez 3-0, with two games going to overtime. Eduardo came back to beat Nathan Li 3-2.
Clay Turk from SBAC also split his matches, beating Van Som 3-0, but then losing to Nathan 3-0. Trevor Pattison (SBAC) started with an easy win over Jeremy Chang, 3-0, but could not handle the soft-touch and deft shot-making of Cam Seo. Cam had earlier beaten Charlie Mullaney. Charlie then took on Van Som in two more matches, but was unable to pick up a game. So the win for SBAC was determined when Nicole Fesbach won both of her matches and then Patrick Ferroni did as well.
Cate traveled to the club with 14 players rated 3.9 down to novice 2.0. The Santa Barbara School of Squash students were anxious to test their skills, and their enthusiasm and practice showed well. Miguel Nava won three matches, Diego Perez two, while Eric Lazaro and Claudia Perez each had a win during their three match morning.
This was terrific experience for these SBSOS players, as they will travel to Stanford University in two weeks to play in a Gold Level Junior Qualifying tournament. The entire Cate team, as well as some players from Laguna Blanca School will also be going.
Finding appropriate competition for high school and junior players can be problematic. The Santa Barbara Athletic Club with head squash pro Robert Graham has been generous with the use of their facilities and willingness to get their members involved to support the growth of junior squash. Debbie Brown, an assistant squash pro at the SBAC and also Executive Director of the Santa Barbara School of Squash, is one of the major movers of junior squash, running both SBSOS and junior squash at the SBAC. Robert and Debbie have both coached local juniors who have gone on to play college squash.
