After starting the season against two of the most celebrated and prestigious high school boys squash programs at Lawrenceville Academy and Brunswick Academy, the Boys Squash team finished out the first half of its season with matches against Brooklyn rival, Packer, and Ivy League teams, Hackley and Dalton. In the process, the team narrowly fell to Packer 2-5 and then went on to win its final 2 matches (both league victories) and improve its overall record to 3-3 as well as a share of first place with Horace Mann for the Ivy League. In these 3 matches later in the season, it was clear that the Blue Devils gained from their trips to Lawrenceville and Brunswick and developed important match play experience as well as team bonding.
Against Packer, Poly fell narrowly 2-5 in a very tight and hard fought matchup. Last season, the Blue Devils narrowly defeated it’s Brooklyn rival, Packer 3 times in extremely close matches. With its entire roster back, and it’s star # 1 player, William Douglass, fully recovered from his knee injury last season, the Pelicans came out prepared to avenge their losses. With 4 seniors in their line-up and 3 Sophomores who have all continued to improve and strengthen themselves, the Pelicans proved to be a very tough opponent. In the rematch to last year’s battles, Packer got the early lead 3-1 in very tight wins at the # 7, 3, and 2 slots putting us against the wall early on in the match. The Blue Devils, however, fought and showed great determination led by Senior Captain, Sam Chudner’s come from behind victory at the # 5 slot to keep the match close to the very end.
At the # 4 slot, Freshman, Will Cembalest played his training partner, friend, and rival, Sophomore Cameron Ewan, very closely and came from an 0-2 deficit staving off match balls to win the 3rd game 19-17, and the 4th, 11-4, before eventually falling in the 5th, 7-11. Similarly, in the # 6 slot, Junior, Vincent Giovinazzo, also played a familiar foe in Oliver Wade and lost narrowly 3-1 with every game going to overtime and thus, sealing a tight victory for the Packer Pelicans.
In the final match of the day, at the # 1 position, Freshman superstar Yehia Essam won an exhibition style match with Packer’s William Douglass to make the final team score 5-2 for Packer. For the Blue Devils, it was the day that could have been and a very tough loss against two teams that have started a great rivalry. The Blue Devils look forward to the rematch against Packer later in the season on January 28th at Packer’s home facility at Eastern Athletic Club.
