Greetings from the Michigan Squash Team!
I hope everyone had a fantastic February – this month’s newsletter is brought to you again by Viv, howdy y’all! February was a jam-packed month for Michigan Squash with several events and matches including the Collegiate Squash Club Team Championships! We’ll get to that later though – for now, I’ll take you through all the exciting news that happened this past month.
At the beginning of the month, the team was invited to the Birmingham Athletic Club (BAC) for another mix n’ match with members – much like our visit to the Detroit Athletic Club in January. The team had a wonderful time hitting around on the facility’s beautiful courts and got to meet many local players and Michigan alumni. A big thank you to the BAC for having us and we can’t wait to do something similar next year!
The very next day consisted of our final match of the regular season against Notre Dame. With it came Michigan Squash’s first ever home match, kindly hosted by the Detroit Athletic Club. Tons of Michigan friends, fans, and alumni came to cheer (including an obnoxiously large group of Lou Alpert’s professional fraternity brothers). After a hard-fought match – including a five setter by yours truly – Michigan came out on top winning 8-1 and ending the regular season undefeated with a 10-0 record! We also treated the match as a Senior Day, thanking our four seniors - Jeremy, Conor, Lou, and Yajwin - for all of their hard work and dedication throughout the last four years.
After a couple more weeks and several grueling practices, the culmination of our season and the last hurrah of our various senior players’ squash careers had arrived – it was time for the Team Championships! After leaving at the dreadful hour of 6 am (our flight got canceled not once, but twice forcing us to be incredibly flexible), we found ourselves in my hometown of Philadelphia, PA at the Arlen Specter Center. Walking in on that first day of matches, the energy in the building was electric – teams from all around the country crowded every inch of floor space, hoping to emerge victorious in their respective brackets. No team was quite as energized as we were though. Being the number one seed in the top division, we knew that win or lose, there was no doubt we weren’t going down without a fight.
Our first match pitted us against Boston University; from the very start of our first wave of players stepping on court, it was apparent everyone on the team knew what was at stake. With some intense and nail-biting matches such as a five setter victory from captain Jeremy Waldman, and dominant showings and decisive victories by sophomores Anourag Shah and Jesse Scherl, Michigan Squash emerged as the victor, beating out the Terriers 7-2. With some downtime between our next match, the team explored Philadelphia and watched some matches from the Varsity Squash Nationals at The University of Pennsylvania. Only a few hours later, we returned to the Arlen Specter Squash Center for the semifinals of the tournament pitting us against the University of Chicago.
It was quickly clear that this match was going to come down to the wire. Both teams traded wins and losses. Back and forth we went up a match and down a match, with notable wins from Erik Barker, the Speed Demon himself ripping apart his opponent, and Gaurav Shekhawat, the Surgeon General tearing apart his opponent with tactical precision, and some heartbreaking losses such as Jeremy Waldman barely losing out after a 60 minute ordeal spanning five games and several questionable calls. Two hours later, the team sadly fell to Chicago, getting marginally beaten out 4-5. Though our chances at the trophy had been all but extinguished, the heart and soul every player had displayed on the court showed that the future of Michigan Squash is bright and a force to be reckoned with.
The next day, Michigan Squash fought against the Cornell University club squash team for the 3/4 playoff. Another nail-biting match ensued, with Vishal Prashant, the West Coast Powerhouse upsetting Cornell’s number one seed Daanyal Agboatwalla, and yet another heartbreaking five setter loss this time coming from senior Yajwin Jain. Michigan Squash was narrowly beaten out yet again with a final score of 4-5. Despite these tough losses, we did take some pretty good pictures which you can see below:
A shoutout to Gaurav Shekhawat is in order, as he finished the entire season 13-0 at the #6 spot. Gaurav had some close battles, but was able to emerge victorious each and every time thanks to his mental strength and will to win. He finishes the season as the #4 player in the country thanks to his unblemished record and we could not be more proud. Honorable mention to Lou Alpert who went 12-1, with his only loss coming from the Uchicago match.
With our season concluding, the team looks back at the months of hard work, discipline, and squash that was put in by each and every player. Led by our fearless captains Lou Alpert and Jeremy Waldman and piloted with precision by the one and only Conor Hynes, we remember a season of triumphs and memories – but Michigan Squash has its eyes trained on the future as well. If this season proved anything, it’s that there’s no telling what this team can do. Formed only a few years ago by the aforementioned players, the incredibly fast rise of this program, reaching the number ranked club team in the nation and an undefeated regular season record, shows that the story of this team is not even close to over. The disappointing result of nationals has not dampened our spirits but instead lit a fire in our souls – we’re coming back next season, and next season, that trophy is ours.
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That’s it for this newsletter. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next month for some final updates before we take a break from the newsletters (to be resumed in September).
Sincerely,
Viv Mahtab ‘24