PC depth does in GFS boys squash

Posted 12/19/16

In the number three match, GFS sophomore James Nalle (bottom) squared off against Penn Charter senior Reid Kleinman. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher Host Germantown Friends won the headliner …

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PC depth does in GFS boys squash

Posted

In the number three match, GFS sophomore James Nalle (bottom) squared off against Penn Charter senior Reid Kleinman. (Photo by Tom Utescher) In the number three match, GFS sophomore James Nalle (bottom) squared off against Penn Charter senior Reid Kleinman. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Host Germantown Friends won the headliner matches on the main court in last Tuesday's non-league boys' squash contest, but visiting Penn Charter's team depth allowed the Quakers to clinch the number four through nine matches to emerge with a 6-3 victory.

The outcome allowed PC to level its overall record at 2-2, while the GFS Tigers slipped to 0-3 in the young season.

The setting for last week's encounter was not unfamiliar to the visiting Quakers, since a number of their players train at the same Germantown Cricket Club facility that Germantown Friends uses as its home venue.

The Charter players even ran across one of their former teammates upon making the short trip to Manheim Street. Tommy Fournaris, who played on the PC varsity squad last year as an eighth-grader, is now a freshman wielding his racquet in the number two position for Germantown Friends.

Fournaris was able to get the better of former colleague Marker Angelakis, overcoming the current Quakers junior, 11-4, 11-4, 11-9 in the second match played on GCC main court. That bout had been preceded by the meeting between the number three players, where GFS sophomore James Nalle started out with 11-6, 11-7 wins. Charter's Reid Kleinman, the only senior in the line-up for the visiting side, staved off a sweep by taking the third game at 11-4, but Nalle then clinched, 11-3.

Penn Charter was making hay farther down the ladder, though. Two PC sophomores took the measure of two GFS seniors, with Rohan Bhambhani going past Germantown number seven Elliot Barr, 11-7, 11-6, 11-8, while in the ninth spot Tom Bradbeer was an 11-5, 11-2, 11-3 winner over Tigers upperclassman Jake Schwartz.

In between, at number eight, Quakers junior Soren Heinz prevailed in a long four-game battle. After grinding out a 15-13 win in the opener and winning the second game at 11-7, Heinz saw his celebration put on hold as GFS freshman Henry Ruger came from behind to win the third game, 12-10. Heinz then reapplied himself and notched the "W" with an 11-6 effort in the fourth round.

There was another four-game wrangle at number six, where visiting junior Ben Swanson jumped ahead with a pair of 11-6 wins. Sophomore Jacob Sternberg-Sher hung around for the Tigers by pocketing game three, 11-8, but then fell by the same score in the fourth frame.

The lone five-game contest of the afternoon took place in the fifth position, where sophomore Michael Harrity was featured for the host Tigers. His opponent was Nick Case, a freshman who played varsity soccer this fall for the Quakers' Inter-Ac and PAISAA champion team. The first two games went to Harrity at six and nine, then Case came all the way back to win with scores of 11-5, 11-6, 11-8.

In the final match over on the main court, GFS senior Jack Lentz got by PC junior Marco Rodriguez in the opener, 11-9, then won more easily in the second game, 11-4. Lentz then appeared to be on his way to a sweep as he got out to an early lead in the third segment.

However, Rodriguez dug in and fought his way back into it, drawing even at 10-10 when Lentz tinned a low shot and then going on to win the game, 12-10. There were some welcome displays of good sportsmanship on the part of the two players, as one would lend a hand to help the other up when he hit the deck. Lentz was all business in the fourth game, ending the match with an 11-4 effort.

Although the team victory had been wrapped by Charter for some time, the last match in progress still featured some scrappiness in the fourth spot thanks to GFS junior Eli Eisenstein and visiting 10th-grader Max Lubowitz. The Tiger took the first game, 13-11, then his guest won out, 11-4, 11-5, 11-4.

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