Winsor Squash

Late report from Nationals.......

A few years ago it was unimaginable that Winsor’s small squash team would become a squash powerhouse not only in MA, but also nationwide. Nobody knew who we are or where we are from. Division I seemed so far and unreachable for us that we would only dream about playing with the best teams in the USA. I still need to be pinched when reading the results of this year’s US High School Squash Championships. The Winsor School has finished 10^th place in Division I. It means that our squash team is a Top 10 program in the USA out of the 63 teams that participated altogether and the 3^rd strongest team in MA.Dreams do come true sometimes and that’s exactly what happened with the Wildcats on the weekend of February 7-9^th.

There were a lot of first time events for the Wildcats. It was the first time that we took a flight together to Philadelphia to play on the tournament. It was also the first time that we have played in Division I.  It was the first Team Nationals for most of our players on the team! To grow the pressure, it was the first time that Winsor was seeded 8^th in Division I out of the 16 teams. The inexperience of playing such strong teams, our youth and the pressure has reached us in the first round. We played Lawrenceville School and lost in a very tight 5-2 battle. The girls have tried everything and left their hearts and souls on the court, but we couldn’t pull out enough wins. Four of the 5 lost matches ended up in 5 games which show how close these matches were.

Our next opponent was Milton Academy that we played against in our regular season and beat 5-2 then. We had more confidence now and became more comfortable playing at such high level. We beat them 6-1 and it gave us a lot of momentum for the next match that was only a few hours later. We have never played against Springside Chestnut Hill Academy before, a school that is located in Philadelphia and has a deep history of great squash. The Wildcats were on fire and showed no fear on court anymore. We defeated them 6-1 , losing in 5 games in the only lost match. 

The Winsor girls were unstoppable and at this point they were in the consolation final facing Germantown School, another top seeded team. We were playing for the 9^th spot, but lost 4-3 at the end in another nail biting battle and took the 10^th place. There are no words to describe how proud we, coaches are! Senior co-captains Sarah Bell and Ananya Mahalingam-Dhingra did an amazing job to keep the fire in our young team and to prove all future squash players that the Winsor School belongs to Division I. The team has put the school on the squash map and coaches, parents and squash fans now know that the Winsor School has a strong program that is top 10 in the country.

Congratulations to the fantastic 8, Winsor’s Dream Varsity Team: Sarah Bell, Ananya Mahalingam-Dhingra, Adrienne Conza, Junnat Anwar, Michelle Walsh, Eve Elizondo, Natasha Jones and Alexa Jacobs. It is a team that made history and will make us more proud in the future!