SCH freshman James Mazzarelli goes after a ball while Haverford number eight Sam Turner (background) gets ready to respond. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

The varsity “A” team from Springside Chestnut Hill Academy was runner-up in Division A of the boys’ Mid-Atlantic Squash Association (MASA) championships last weekend, while Penn Charter was the champion in Division B.

Preliminary rounds were played at various campus sites during last week, then on Saturday the main draw and consolation bracket finalists in all four divisions assembled at Springside Chestnut Hill to determine the titlists in each category. The teams had been seeded in the different divisions according to their match results throughout the 2015-16 season.

SCH went past Conestoga High School, 8-1, and Episcopal Academy, 7-2, in the first two rounds, then came up against the dominant boys team in the region this year, Haverford School. The Blue Devils captured the number eight match but the Fords took the rest to clinch the 2016 title with an 8-1 victory.

In Division B, Penn Charter’s victims were St. Andrew’s School (9-0), the Haverford School junior varsity (9-0) and the Springside Chestnut Hill varsity “B” team (7-2). Powerful Haverford was the only school to have both a varsity A and B team in Division I while entering its JV in Division B.

The Germantown Friends School varsity performed in Division B. The Tigers fell to the Fords’ JV team and to St. Andrew’s during the week, but bounced back on Saturday with a consolation bracket victory over Radnor High School, 6-3.

As SCH opened play against Conestoga last Wednesday, there were 3-0 victories from juniors Zane Jeka, Luke Stauffer, and David Brenman in the number one, three, and four positions. More wins in straight games came from seniors Henry Kelly (five), Andrew Dolente (six), Eric Dolente (eight), and Billy Harris (nine). Freshman number seven Michael Berry also won 3-0.

There had been some changes for the Blue Devils when the Episcopal match came around; freshman James Mazzarelli was at number eight and Eric Dolente was number nine, with Harris moving to the top spot on the “B” squad.

At the top of the ladder, Jeka and senior number two Harrison Kapp were edged by EA opponents in five games, but SCH prevailed the rest of the way down the ladder. Stauffer, Berry, Mazzarelli, and Eric Dolente went through at 3-0, Kelly and Andrew Dolente turned in 3-1 scores, and Brenman ground out a 3-2 win over Scott McConnell of the Churchmen.

Meanwhile, a young Penn Charter squad went through its two weekday matches with flawless performances against St. Andrew’s and the Haverford JV’s. The lone senior in the line-up, Tate Miller, was playing number two, while Reid Kleinman, the only junior, was positioned fifth. Sophomore Marco Rodriguez was number one and classmates Marker Angelakis, Ben Swanson, and Soren Heinz were playing four, seven, and eight, respectively. The Quakers had freshmen Rohan Bhambhani and Max Lubowitz playing six and nine, and up in the three spot was eighth-grader Tommy Fournaris.

Converging toward PC in the Division B main draw was SCH “B”, now led by the aforementioned Harris. In two through nine the Blue Devils had junior Griffin Glendinning, freshmen Matt Bown and Peter Kapp, sophomores Joe Fabiani, Charlie Randall, and Finley Blake, and freshmen Nick Dolente and Nate McDowell. In 9-0 SCH sweeps of the first two opponents, all matches were decided in three games except for a 3-1 win by Harris against Hill School and a 3-2 decision for Nick Dolente against Conestoga’s Varsity B.

In the Division B final against Penn Charter, Bown (who’d moved to number two) and number six Randall prevailed, 3-1, but the rest of the spoils went to the Quakers. Rodriguez and Fournaris turned in 3-0 scores at number one and three, as did Swanson and Lubowitz at seven and nine. There were 3-1 wins for Kleinman and Heinz, while Angelakis went to a fifth game for his victory.

GFS, after its two setbacks during the week, was playing the Radnor Red Raiders in a Saturday consolation bout at the Cherokee courts on the old Springside campus. The Tigers went down the line with 3-0 victories at the number one through five positions.

First through third were seniors Calvin McCafferty, Felipe Sanz, and Silas Shah, while freshman James Nalle was fourth and sophomore Eli Eisenstein nailed down the number five match. Giving GFS an insurance win was junior Elliot Barr, who won at number eight by a 3-1 score.

In the Division A finals on their home courts on Saturday, the SCH varsity A Blue Devils were facing a Haverford team that had beaten them 8-1 in a mid-January meeting on the Main Line. During the following fortnight, there were some changes on the lower reaches of the SCH ladder, and also a shift in the middle, as Brenman and Kelly had switched spots to play four and five, respectively, last weekend.

The Fords’ intra-squad challenge matches also resulted in two players swapping places; the former number three, sophomore Peter Miller, was now number four, and senior Will Means rose from four to three. In their regular season contest, Kelly had provided Springside Chestnut Hill with its only victory by beating Means in the fourth spot, but with the revised line-ups, there would be no rematch between the two.

There was some early hope for the Hillers as first three matches on the court progressed. At number seven Berry lost his opening game to Fords junior Will Glaser, but then gutted out a 16-14 triumph in the second round. His freshman classmate, the scrappy Mazzarelli, kept digging balls out of the crevices until he took down Haverford sophomore Sam Turner, 11-6, 11-9, 11-6, in the eighth position.

Things took a tough turn for SCH fans as Glaser came back to take the both the third and fourth games at 11-2 to clinch at number seven for the Fords, and the results at number nine had Haverford senior Jimmy Tricolli topping Eric Dolente, 11-8, 11-5, 11-6.

Miller, the player who’d moved down in the Fords’ line-up, won the number four match, 11-7, 11-6, 11-5 against the Devils’ Brenman, and at number six, sophomore Grant Sterman overcame Andrew Dolente of SCH, 11-8, 11-4, 11-5. Haverford senior number five Justin Shah won the first two games, 11-3, 11-5. The Blue Devils’ Kelly fell behind in the third and then rallied back within a point at 6-7, but the next four points - and the match – went to Shah.

Early in the first game at number two, Haverford junior Duncan Joyce jumped out ahead of Harrison Kapp, but the hardworking SCH senior clawed back and took the score to 10-10 before his rival notched the next two points for the win. Joyce, who skitters all over the court like a water bug on a pond, secured the next two rounds at 11-5, 11-2.

In the top spot Fords senior Sean Hughes, who has held the number one ranking among U.S. juniors, worked through SCH’s Jeka, 11-5, 11-1, 11-5.

Spectators now squeezed into the gallery above the one bout still going, where Stauffer squared off against Means at number three. Stauffer built a 2-1 lead by capturing games one and three (11-6, 11-8), but Means, who’d won the second round at 11-9, came back to take the fourth and fifth games, 11-4, 11-6.