The ball squeezes past the racquet of a fully extended Eli Eisenstein. The Germantown Friends senior was playing in the third spot in last week's season opener. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Visiting Penn Charter arrived for last Thursday's squash match without one member of its regular line-up, but host Germantown Friends was missing two men for the contest at the Germantown Cricket Club.

PC was still able to fill the top three positions with experienced seniors, and the Quakers prevailed against the Tigers, 8-1. This raised Charter's record to 3-0, with the team posting earlier victories over Conestoga High School and Inter-Ac League rival Malvern Prep. Thursday's match was the season opener for GFS.

Germantown won one of the first matches to go on the court, but this would be the only "W" the Tigers acquired throughout the afternoon. The Quakers' junior number eight, Tom Bradbeer, topped GFS eighth-grader Zack Idinopulos, 11-6, 11-5, 11-6, and in the ninth position PC sophomore Jack Kennedy was an 11-6, 11-9, 11-8 winner over a senior for the host team, Giza Molenar.

A freshman playing number seven for the Tigers, Gray Kearns, prevented a sweep by the visitors by defeating Charter junior Rohan Bhambhani, 11-6, 15-13, 11-6. One rung above in the sixth spot, PC eighth-grader Oliver Leedale-Brown (son of Penn Charter Director of Squash Damon Leedale-Brown) opened up with 11-5, 11-3 wins. GFS junior Jacob Sternberg-Sher battled back to take the next two rounds, 11-7, 12-10, then Leedale-Brown ground out the match victory in an 11-9 fifth game.

Penn Charter senior Marker Angelakis reaches up for a ball during the number two match. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

Another eighth-grade player for Penn Charter, Hyun Su Price, took the number five contest, 11-4, 11-9, 11-7, over a 10th-grader for the host team, Caleb Friedman-Spring. In the fourth slot two freshmen faced one another, and Ryan Yeatman of the Quakers won out over Kenji Moriuchi, 11-3, 11-6, 11-2.

In the first match on the main court, PC's Ben Swanson wrangled a 14-12 victory in the opening game, but fellow senior Eli Eisenstein captured each of the next two rounds with a score of 11-8. Swanson extended the encounter by prevailing in game four, 12-10, then he also won the fifth game, 11-7.

Two more Penn Charter seniors occupied the top two positions, each taking down younger Germantown Friends rivals in three games. Marker Angelakis gave up, three, six and five points in his victory over Tigers freshman Sean Park at number two, and at number one Marco Rodriguez bested Germantown junior James Nalle, 11-2, 11-4, 11-2.