To finish out their first half of the season, Poly hosted Dalton the following day at their courts. It is Dalton’s first season as a Varsity squash team in the Ivy League and the emerging team was very excited to come and play Poly and be a part of the Ivy League. While Dalton, lacked depth on its roster, it has 2 standout Freshman players playing in their # 1 and # 2 slots on the roster.
As a result, the Blue Devils comfortably defeated the back of their line-up, and had great matches in the # 1 and # 2 slots. In the # 1 slot, Poly Senior Captain and leader, Nate Johnson, played his best-ever match in a Poly uniform going toe-to-toe with Dalton’s Jake Ellen, one of the 3 best Freshman in the country. While Ellen displayed tremendous court sense, poise, and retrieving, Johnson showed his great agility, leg strength, mental toughness, and experience in adopting tactics that changed the pace of play, mixed up the patterns of play, and executed high rewards with low-risk associated with them to battle Ellen before falling 2-3. For Johnson, it was a great experience and example for the Blue Devils to see his tenacity, poise, and maturity in going up against one of the best players in High School Squash and force his opponent to earn every point and never give up. In the process, Johnson showed great sportsmanship and earned the respect of the entire Dalton team, its coach, and parents and set a great example for the Blue Devils to build off of in the matches to come.
The Boys Varsity has had a great start to the season and now prepares itself for its winter training trip to Philadelphia to train with some of the best HS programs in the country including Epsicopal Academy and Haverford school as well as it’s upcoming matches in January against Delbarton, Horace Mann, Pingry, Choate Rosemary Hall, Deerfield Academy, Taft, Salisbury, Trinity School, and Riverdale as well as rematches with Packer, Hackley and Dalton.
