March 02, 2006 Issue                                               

©2005 The Chestnut Hill Local

Charter first, CHA second in boys MASA tourney
by TOM UTESCHER

The 2005-2006 Penn Charter boys squash team (left to right): Coach Geoff Shields, David Hilton, Adam Greenberg, Matt Domenick, Steve Harrington, Alex Domenick, Chris Callis, Ross Harrow, Pat Brady

Inter-Ac League champion Penn Charter defeated runner-up Chestnut Hill Academy by 6-1 scores in both of their regular-season matches this winter, but the CHA Blue Devils finished a much closer second at the Middle Atlantic Squash Association tournament last week. In the end though, the Quakers came away with another title, winning the tourney with a total of 21 team points to Chestnut Hill’s 18.5.

CHA and Springside School, which now have 10 international-spec courts between them, hosted the eight-team tournament, which included four schools from the Inter-Ac and two from the Friends School League. Episcopal Academy placed third with 10 team points and Haverford School was fourth with eight, while Shipley was close behind in fifth place with seven-and-a-half. Hill mustered up one point to come in sixth, and Germantown Friends and a combined Lower Merion and Harriton High School squad did not score in the event.

In Division A, the number one and two players from CHA and Penn Charter all advanced into the second round, where Chestnut Hill’s Brooks Russell defeated PC’s Alex Domenick, 3-0, while Chris Callis of the Quakers knocked off the Blue Devils’ Nick Pearson by the same score. In the semifinals Russell lost, 3-2, to junior national champion Trevor McGuiness of Epsicopal, and Callis was beaten 3-1 by Haverford’s Todd Ruth.

McGuiness topped Ruth, 9-7, 4-9, 9-5, 9-6 for the championship, and in a best-of-three match for third place Callis defeated Russell, 2-1. In the opening round, Ruth had beaten Brad Thompson of Germantown Friends, but Thompson came back to reach the finals in the consolation bracket.

Of the local players in Division B, only Penn Charter’s Matt Domenick and Adam Greenberg and CHA’s Tyler Stout made it out of the opening round. Pat Davis did well for Chestnut Hill in the consolations, though, winning the bracket by beating Shipley’s David Hall in the final, 2-1.

The three players still in the main draw all went through to the semifinals, where Greenberg won 3-1 against Stout and Domenick defeated Shipley’s Rye Biddle, 3-0. In the all-Penn Charter final Greenberg ground out an 8-10, 9-5, 9-7, 6-9, 9-5 victory over Domenick, while Biddle took third place over Stout, 2-1.

The championship match in Division C featured a pair of Chestnut Hill Academy players, and in a best-of-three final Ian Holton topped teammate Bob Goldman in straight games. In the semi’s, Holton had won, 3-0, against the Quakers’ Ross Harrow, and Goldman had recorded a 3-1 victory over Steve Harrington, also of Penn Charter. Harrow claimed third place by default.

In Division D, the seventh and eighth players from Chestnut Hill and Charter each earned a berth in the semifinal round. Here, PC’s Pat Brady beat Chip Culp of CHA, 3-1, while the Blue Devils won the other match, 3-0, as Steve Wetherill took the measure of David Hilton. Brady was a 3-0 winner against Wetherill in the finals, and Culp claimed third place over Hilton, 2-0.