by Tom Utescher

Following a 6-3 victory over Shipley School, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s Varsity A squash team won a second home match last Thursday without swinging a single racquet.

Teams with deep talent pools like SCH and Haverford School have both a varsity “A” and “B” team, as well as a regular junior varsity. Malvern Prep, relatively new to the sport, arrived in Chestnut Hill on Thursday scheduled to play against the Blue Devils’ A team, but an assessment of the disparity between the schools caused the visiting Friars to forfeit the varsity A match and take on SCH B instead.

Springside Chestnut Hill graduated Joe Fabiani from the middle of the last year’s line-up, but otherwise the principal players on the 2017-2018 roster return this season.

There are four captains who are all seniors, Michael Berry, Matthew Bown, James Mazzarelli and Peter Kapp. They play in the first, fourth, third and sixth positions, respectively, while Mazzarelli’s younger brother Christian is the number two and fellow junior Charlie Larkin is at number five.

Rounding out the regular starting line-up in the seventh through ninth positions are junior Chase Cook, freshman Andrew Bown (Matthew’s brother) and junior Jake Scholl.

If there’s a need to bump other players up into the top nine, the first call will go out to senior Nate McDowell and junior Austin Youngren, who are currently 10th and 11th on the depth chart, respectively.

Scholl, McDowell and Youngren all played with the Varsity B against Malvern last Thursday. Scholl lost to the Friars’ relatively strong number one by a 3-1 score, but the Blue Devils were victorious everywhere else, winning the match 8-1.

McDowell and Youngren each turned in a 3-0 victory, as did sophomore Philip McDowell (Nate’s cousin) at number five, and three seniors; Nick Dolente (six), Will McHugh (seven) and Danny Levin (nine). Sophomore Chase Newbold was a 3-1 winner in the eighth spot, and junior Tommy Scanlin ground out a 3-2 victory at number four.