Squash Magazine: Junior Nationals 2005

Golden Jubilee The National Juniors Turns Fifty With a Record-Breaking Performance by Lily Lorentzen By James Zug

Lorentzen The 50th annual staging of the national juniors was pretty amazing. At the first nationals in New York in 1956 there were just eight boys. In March 2005 at Meadow Mill in Baltimore there were 256 boys and girls. In 1956 Treddy Ketcham and John Humes smuggled Steve Vehslage's mother in an overcoat up a service elevator and into the gallery at the Union Club, in a stealthy evasion of the club's men-only rule. In 2005 mothers and fathers were omnipresent. Amid the febrile disarray of 14 courts and 464 matches, parents counseled, coached and most of all coursed with nervous energy. The junior nationals now have the word “ closed” in their title. In 2000 the national juniors at Yale had 336 kids who entered; in 2001 at Princeton it was 341. Besides the gloomy prospect of having to start the tournament on a Thursday, the USSRA was also concerned with the quality of play. Almost 90% of the first-round matches were 3-0 blowouts, and, since the semis and finals were played on Sunday, many of the finals were contested by exhausted players. In 2002 the USSRA, under the direction of then junior development head-honcho Stephen Gregg, decided to cap each of the four girls and boys age-group draws at 32 based upon rankings. It was a beautiful decision. More than a hundred kids did not qualify into the 2002 nationals and in 2003 the USSRA created the FutureStars nationals to meet the need of the kids outside the top 32. (The FutureStars, a wonderfully grassroots institution, almost needed a cap of its own, as 228 kids played in the inaugural draw in Philadelphia and a U11 division was added.) The national juniors became instantly manageable. In 2005 matches began at eight in the morning on Friday and the last match of the consolations was off the court by half past two on Sunday afternoon. The finals were of very high quality and even the number of first-round demolitions dropped emphatically—exactly 25% of first round matches went to four or five games. Despite the reduction in size, the national juniors still has the chaotic, kinetic energy that is endemic to junior tournaments. Kids hate a vacuum. Whenever a court was momentarily match-free, a smattering of kids—inevitably of both genders and all ages—would stream onto it and without consultation a game of King of the Court would ensue. The only time they got tied down was after their match when by custom they referee the next match. This custom teaches the kids the rules and somewhat reduces on-court scowling, as it is harder for older kids to get angry with a ref half your size. Adults only reffed the first matches of the day and the finals. A certain slickness enveloped the scene as well. A Saturday evening wine and cheese party restored parental goodwill. There were more former top-10 PSA players in the galleries than at some PSA events, and it was somewhat odd to watch two 14-year-old boys playing each other in the company of Rodney Martin, former world No. 2. Coaches snuck off to play some hardball doubles and more than once the largest gallery at Meadow Mill was watching top ISDA players like Chris Walker, John Russell and Steve Scharff banging it around. Harrow donated to each player a fancy dry-fit t-shirt and a pair of sneakers, and more than one kid was seen at their retail desk hoisting a Harrow lacrosse stick and talking shop with Harrow's David Rosen. Furthermore, Jonathon Power flew from Montreal to make a special visit to the tournament. There is no greater idol for the teen squash set in North America, and dozens of worshipful kids orbited around Power outside the courts, asking questions with deep earnestness: “ How hard can you hit the ball?” The former world champion, British Open champion and world #1 then played points against a variety of opponents in a good-natured, enjoyable exhibition. It was a bit reminiscent of the old Bigelow Match, in which a top amateur played against a top Jester Club member at the national juniors. That custom ran from 1973 until the switch to softball, and the idea of flying in a player like Power added some pizzazz to this year's tournament. Closing the nationals has the effect of delineating exactly who has the best junior programs. The winners were no surprise: Heights Casino had 23 players who qualified and came to the nationals; Merion Cricket Club and Apawamis had 22 each; and Philadelphia Cricket Club had 20. (Unlike in the hardball days, college players did not rule the under 19 roost and only two collegiate players attended.) Interestingly, after all the talk of rising numbers, it is still the major private club powerhouses that dominate. More than a third of all the participants came from those four clubs. Junior squash is notoriously fluid and each of the eight divisions contained surprises. In the Boys' Under-13 and the Girls' U19, the Maine family had finalists, and people tried to remember the last time two siblings had done so well at the nationals. Both Jack and Emery, who play at Philly Cricket, fell in three games, to Christopher Jung from Seattle and Lily Lorentzen from Apawamis. Also in the U 13 draw was a boy named Power, but it was Gary not Jonathon. Attired from head to toe in flashy Harrow gear, Gary Power grabbed third place over USSRA junior chair Will Greer's son Alexander. The most interesting match in the U 13s might have been the 7/8 playoff. It pitted Joe Powden, the son of Washington, DC, junior guru Wendy Lawrence, against Peter Dylan Murray, who plays out of Westchester Squash. For the second year in a row, Murray claimed the honor of being the youngest player at the nationals. Now 10, the pint-sized Murray lost in five to Powden who was twice his size yet always a good sport. The U13 girls also provided some glimpses at possible squash greatness to come. Both Olivia Blatchford, the Heights Casino girl playing in her fourth nationals, and Vidya Rajan, the Yusuf and Azam Khan-protégé playing in her first, steamrolled into the final; both girls won their first two matches of the tournament with the loss of a single point. In the finals Blatchford won in three, but much will be heard of both of these girls in years to come. Domination was the watchword in the U 15s. Emily Park, the Gotham great, strolled to victory, winning seven out of her 15 games at love. Todd Harrity ate up the U15 boys with six donuts. In the finals though, Philly Cricket's Tom Mattsson scraped off the first game. Harrity, blessed with a classic racquet-sports pedigree, was on court before the age of four and has recently blossomed into one of the most graceful and composed juniors in recent memory. He won the Merion club championship, an astounding feat for a 14-year-old. The quarterfinals of the boys U17 provided some of the best squash of the weekend. After being down 2-0, Simon Culver from Brooklyn took out No. 1 seed Travis Judson of Greenwich in five, and next door Reed Endresen of Apawamis came from behind to pip Peter Sopher of Washington, DC, in a five-game, 70-minute beauty. At one-all, Sopher grabbed an 8-0 lead and Endresen gamely toughed it out to win the game in overtime. Endresen then took out Culver in four but did not have enough gas left to overtake Todd Ruth of Gladwyne in the final. Endresen had beaten Ruth 3-2 in the semis of the nationals two years before, but this time Ruth triumphed. In the U17 girls, it was an Inter-Ac battle between Episcopal and Penn Charter in the best of the eight final. Facing a spirited Christina Matthias (of Penn Charter), Logan Greer battled back from being down 6-2 in the second, to win a key second game to tie it at one-all. She won the third at love, dropped the fourth at five and recovered to win 9-4 in the fifth. In the U19 boys, Chris Gordon tore through the draw. At one point he had won eight straight games at 9-0, and the biggest gallery roar in Meadow Mill's history might have come in his semi against Jake Gross when Gross won his first point in the third game. The nine goose-eggs tallied by Gordon in the national juniors reminded some observers of Rudulfo Rodriguez's in 1988 and Marcos Mendez in 1989, but neither Mexican player flattened opponents with such severity. By beating the precocious 16-year-old Trevor McGuinness 6, 0, 2 in the final, Gordon lifted his third national title and closed out his remarkably focused junior career. Having trained almost full-time in England for the past four years, Gordon is turning pro this spring. He already is the highest ranking American citizen on the PSA tour, at 93 in the world. It is a long, treacherous road, and yet it is important to recall that the last American schoolboy champion to bypass college, albeit after most of one measly semester, was a guy named Mark Talbott. As great as Talbott was, his childhood career cannot compare with the greatest junior player in US history. Rewriting the record books, Lily Lorentzen became the first four-time national junior champion. In the half-century of the national juniors there have been five three-time U19 winners: Steve Vehslage, Ian Shaw, Dave McNeely, Alicia McConnell and Louisa Hall. But never a fourth. The cool New Yorker spent well less than two hours on court for the weekend, most of which was spent in overcoming Christina Alexander in three tight games in their semi. In fact, the most interesting matches of the draw came with recent Squash Magazine cover girl Kristen Lange, who saved seven excruciating match points against Wilmington Country Club's Sydney Scott in the quarters—probably the most riveting match of the weekend—only to blow a 2-0 lead in the semis to Emery Maine. Having spent a gap year training, Lorentzen goes on to Harvard this fall. Whether she wins no national senior titles like Shaw or seven like McConnell, she will be someone to follow as her adult career now begins to unfold. 2005 DeRoy Sportsmanship Award Winners In 1998 the USSRA created the DeRoy Sportsmanship Award, given to a junior girl and boy who exemplify the ideals of fair play and who leads through example. The DeRoy Testamentary Foundation, founded in 1946 and based in Detroit, has been a staunch supporter of junior squash for two decades and believes, as the permanent trophy attests, that “ sports do not build character, they reveal it.” The 2005 winners were Christina Alexander and Francis Johnson. A freshman at Dartmouth, Christina Alexander played #1 for the Big Green. She led them to a fifth-place finish in the intercollegiate Howe Cup, beating All-American Paula Pearson 9-7 in the fifth to help Dartmouth clinch the match. Alexander grew up in Cincinnati and is a Don Mills-trained export. Two years ago she tore her ACL playing soccer and worked hard to recover completely. At the 2005 nationals she reached the semis before bowing in three hard-fought games to eventual champion Lily Lorentzen 8, 6, 6. While Alexander grew up in a squash hotbed, Francis Johnson has always played without the benefit of a major squash community. He hails from Charlottesville's Albemarle Racquet Club. On its two courts, he and coach Gary Crimi have crafted a tenacious, but harmonious game. (He plays the timpani in the Youth Orchestra of Charlottesville-Albemarle.) Johnson fulfilled his seedings and came in third at the 2005 nationals. An incoming freshman at Yale, Johnson will make more music on both the Eli's squash and lacrosse teams. Former Winners: 1998 Mollie H. Anderson & Adam Achenbach 1999 Elissa Gross & Dylan Patterson 2000 Devon Dalzell & Alex Ende 2001 Lilian Rosenthal & Dennett Wilkens 2002 Niki Clement & William Broadbent 2003 Audrey Duboc & Parker Sutton 2004 Gilly Lane & Lily Lorentzen

Golden Jubilee

The National Juniors Turns Fifty With a Record-Breaking Performance by Lily Lorentzen