SCH junior number three Lilly Soroko lines up a serve during last Thursday's home match. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

By Tom Utescher

After being on both ends of a pair of lopsided 8-1 squash contests, Springside Chestnut Hill hosted a match that was somewhat more even, but still gave the Blue Devils a bit of a cushion for a 6-3 victory.

The visiting team, known as HLM, is a combination of athletes from two Main Line high schools, Harriton and Lower Merion, and this season the schools are represented almost equally in the girls' varsity line-up.

A pair of Lower Merion juniors played in the third and fourth spots for the visitors, where they happened to match up with two SCH 11th-graders. Lilly Soroko of the Blue Devils won three tight games at number three over Emily Bartos, 11-9, 12-10, 14-12, while in the fourth position HLM's Halle Cooper captured the first game at 11-9, but host Hannah Larkin came back to secure the next three, 11-5, 11-3, 11-5.

Seniors Taylor Ferry and Joia McGivern held down the top two spots for Springside Chestnut Hill, where they succumbed to their opponents.

It looked like the Blue Devils' Ferry didn't really get warmed up until the third game, but by then she was down 0-2 (4-11, 3-11) to fellow 12th-grader Mia Rosini of the Ram Aces. Ferry extended the third game, but Rosini, who's headed for Princeton, prevailed 13-11.

SCH's McGivern, who earned early admission at Penn, won the opener at number two, 10-8, then slipped behind as HLM sophomore Dani Benstock pocketed each of the next two games at 11-9. Early in round four McGivern found herself down 3-6, but she fought back to make a game of it before Benstock eventually ended the match, 11-9.

HLM's other victory came in a struggle between sophomores at number nine, where visitor Barbara Peck posted scores of 11-9, 11-0, 11-5 against the Blue Devls' Emma Yateman.

Springside Chestnut Hill claimed the five through eight matches, though.

Junior number eight Emily Biscardi got by HLM 10th-grader Ella Garcia, 6-11, 11-9, 11-2, 11-5, while the home girls won each of the other three bouts in straight games.

Freshman Maggie Pearson punched out an 11-1, 11-6, 11-1 victory against visiting junior Kiran Kurahna in the sixth match, and on either side of Pearson were SCH's Rorke sisters. Grace, a junior playing number five, took down senior Catherine Liu, 11-2, 11-5, 11-1, while Abbie, a freshman, dispatched fellow ninth-grader Clare Dalinka, 11-2, 11-6, 11-3.

Both sisters were starters for the school's PAISAA runner-up soccer team in the fall, and Grace has committed to Dartmouth College.

The Blue Devils improved to 3-4 with Thursday's win, and HLM leveled out at 3-3.