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Rosen-Cordova win BIDS Title
By Rob Dinerman, Feb 12, 2008    
Squashtalk Independent News; © 2008 SquashTalk LLC

Kennedy, Fitzpatrick Inducted Into Maryland Squash Hall Of Fame at the BIDS Event

The Maryland State Squash Racquets Association (MSSRA) inducted Geoff Kennedy and Joe Fitzpatrick into its Hall Of Fame this past Saturday evening at the Baltimore Country Club as part of the evening festivities associated with the Baltimore Invitational Doubles Squash (BIDS) weekend. Kennedy was recognized for the four BIDS (one each with Joe Fabiani and Beau Buford and two with Andrew Cordova) and five Maryland State Doubles titles he has won over the years (Morris Clothier, a four-time BIDS winner himself who was inducted in the initial Hall Of Fame class in 2001, drove down from New York to make the presenting speech on behalf of Kennedy, his former mid-1980’s teammate at Franklin & Marshall), while Fitzpatrick, who was introduced by Leo Pierce, has excelled in age-group doubles, especially during the past decade as Sandy Martin’s left-wall partner, in both regional and Nationals competition.

Kennedy had entered the weekend hoping to punctuate the honor that awaited him by adding a fifth BIDS crown to his Maryland-squash resume, and he and his partner Buford (another former F & M teammate), BIDS titlists in 2002, seemed to have in their favor the momentum they had generated the prior week, when they had rallied from 8-12 to a 15-13 fifth-game final-round victory over Rob Whitehouse and Greg Park in the Philly Boast tourney; this seemed even more to be the case when Buford and Kennedy saved a third-game match-ball against them in their decisive Pool match (four of whose five games went to overtime) against Dave Rosen and Cordova, following which Buford/Kennedy took the fourth game and forged an 11-9 margin in the fifth.

But that game seesawed almost inevitably into a best-of-nine tiebreaker, all five points of which landed in the Rosen/Cordova column, in each case on either unforced or semi-forced errors off the normally reliable and potent bats of Buford and Kennedy, who thereby suffered their second fifth-set tiebreaker defeat in this event in as many years, having lost 15-14 in the fifth in ’07 to Doug Hoffberger and Ryan O’Connell, though Saturday’s two-hour-plus 17-15 16-15 (on a wall-hugging Rosen rail that a diving Buford couldn’t return) 17-18 (on a tinned Rosen back-hand reverse-corner) 12-15 18-13 classic was on a much-higher level in every respect than its counterpart of a year ago.

The other bracket devolved into a match pitting former U. S. Nationals and William White finalists Tom Harrity and Whitehouse against first-time partners Ben Garner and Nick Barquin. Harrity and Whitehouse had their best years in the mid-1990’s (’95 being the year in which they finished runner-up to Clothier and Jon Foster in the Nationals) and had teamed up only rarely since reaching the ’01 White final (via a 15-12 fifth-game semi over Buford/Kennedy), where they lost to Clothier and Eric Vlcek. This match had no real rhythm and was characterized by streaky play, tinning patches intermixed with daring winners, and an undulating score-line. Barquin’s hot streak in the fifth game (especially his front-side cross-court nicks in front of Whitehouse, who was having trouble dealing with Garner’s power as well) may have spelled the difference in the 15-12 fifth game.

It was the parting shot for this pair of unexpected finalists, who were out-played the following day by their more experienced opponents in a somewhat anticlimactic 15-9 10-15 15-8 15-9 final that Rosen and Cordova had well in hand by early in the third game. Barquin tinned many of the same shots that he had hit for winners against Whitehouse/Harrity, and Garner was unable to exert the influence on this match that his athleticism had imposed the day before. In the end, Cordova (who in an emotional trophy acceptance speech dedicated the win to the memory of his mother-in-law, who succumbed on January 25th after a long battle with lung cancer) came away with his third BIDS title (preceded by the ’03 and ’05 events he won with Kennedy) and Rosen earned his second doubles-tournament win in as many weeks, having combined with Narelle Krizek to annex the U. S. Mixed Doubles crown in Boston on February’s first weekend.

FORTY PLUS RESULTS
One other noteworthy BIDS result occurred in the 40-and-over flight, where Baltimore’s own Greg Mathis and Brian Kroneberger defeated first White 50’s champs Andrew Nehrbas and Doug Rice and then David Page and Gil Mateer to claim the championship. Page and Mateer had sportily agreed to fill the sixth team slot in the Open division at the behest of the tournament committee, and the two additional matches they thereby were required to play may have had some influence on the course of the final, though Mathis and Kroneberger form an excellent touch/power combination, as they demonstrated throughout the weekend.

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