SquashTalk >College and University pages > Stanford vs Cal Berkeley, Nov 4 2001
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Stanford University scores big win over Cross-Town Rival Cal Berkeley
by Jason Miller, Stanford, Nov 11 2001 © 2001 SquashTalk
West Coast collegiate squash got a jumpstart on the 2001-2002 season with an early matchup between perennial rivals Stanford and Cal-Berkeley. Cal squash is a storied program with nearly forty years of west coast dominance. Led by sixth=year coach Ashley Kayler, the team is a three-time winnder of the Division C National Title and has produced dozens of top players. With the loss of seven of its top twelve players this past year, Cal had the difficult task of defending its last season's #22 national ranking against up-and-coming Stanford heading into the matchup on November 4th.
The Stanford team, in its third full year of existence, was fresh off a highly successful 2000-2001 campaign that included the Division D national title and the Barnaby Trophy for most improved collegiate program in the country. The Cardinal return a core of 6 players this year and have added on an abundance of young talent. While still extremely young (10 of the team's 15 players are sophomores or freshmen), the team is grounded in the solid experience of coach Richard Elliott, who just complete a semi-final finish at the 35+ World Masters tournament in Australia.
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| Stanford (Red and White) and Cal Berkeley (Yellow and Blue) do the traditional intercollegiate pre-match introductions. |
Before the match started, Stanford #5 Ming Soo had to withdraw under extenuating circumstances. This pushed #6-10 up a slot making the Cardinals apprehensive. After introductions, numbers 5-9 took to the courts first in front of an audience of 100-plus people.
#5 sophomore Justin Durack (S) handled his opponent, Harlan Yu (UCB) , in a 3-1 match that testing each player's conditioning. #6 sophomore Sagar Chandaria's (S) match against Michael Chang (UCB) was interrupted by a flareup of heart arythmia by Chang. After using his injury break and 90 seconds from forfeiting a game, Chang braved on, but could not overpower Chandaria who won 3-1.
#7 Stanford freshman Chris Fesenmaier had a tough time against his opponent's (Shakti Chemitiganti) rocket fast shots, losing the match 3-0.
#8
freshman Adam Kwok (S) also got off to a slow start with a series of unforced
errors against his opponent Sonesh Surana (UCB) but pulled around in the next
three games to seal the match at 3-1. #9 freshman Suzi Smith (S) , the only
girl on the Stanford team, improved dramatically since Stanford began practicing.
Her hard work showed off as she pulled a convincing 3-0 win over her opponent
Adam Angsten.
With the match at 4-1 in favor of Stanford, the Cardinal knew they were close to wrapping things up.
But that confident feeling began to fade as #4 sophomore Paul Valiant (S) went down 3-1 to his opponent Ben Durie (B) in a slug-fest match of pounding rails. #3 sophomore Sam Gellman (S) looked to be heading down a similar path with a first game 9-0 loss to his opponent Manu Vaish (UCB) . But with the crowd solidly behind him, Sam bore down pulled out a 3-1 victory and giving Stanford the match. Even with the match already clinched, the Cardinal #2 and #1 played perhaps the longest and most tightly contested matches. #2 senior Jason Miller (S)fell prey to a huge number of unforced errors in his first several games against Cal's David Hwang. After settling down, Miller, whose nickname is DieHard, relied on his conditioning to pull out a 3-2 victory in a match that took 85 minutes. #1 freshman Rich Sherwood (S), a huge suprise this season given after having just learned the game a year ago, had an even more grueling match with Australia native Stuart Morgan (UCB). Relying on a defensive game plan that included the retrival of almost every single shot Stuart hit and the uncanny ability to cut off almost anything, Rich fell in 4 to Stuart whose 12 years of squash experience was just too much for the sophomore.
Stanford then played 6 exhibition matches at #10-15 against Cal's #5-10 players. #10 freshman Alex Marshall had troubles falling 3-0 to Cal's #10 Rajiv Batra. #11 junior Tim Holme, having just picked up the game this year, was charged with playing Cal's #5- Tim lost 3-0, but put up game scores that showed how quickly he's improved in just a month. @12 sophomore Louis Chang, like Tim, picked up the game less than a month ago. Louis went down only after a hard fought 4-game match against Cal's #8. The front court proved to be the difference in this match. #13 freshman Mike Asmar again picked up the game just this past month. Slightly nervous, Mike fell 3-0 to Cal's #9 but again, with tight game scores. #14 senior Dan Morris, with a few months of squash experience under his belt, fell to Cal's #8 3-0. Finally, #15 senior Andres Suster played a suprisingly strong match against Cal's #8, falling in four games. With a 6-3 victory and a strong showing of #s 10-15, Stanford was highly pleased with the Nov 4th result.
The win gives Stanford momentum as they roll into Boston for the Stanford Round Robin Invitational to be held at Harvard Nov 16th -18th.
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