2002 Annual SquashBusters vs StreetSquash

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Feb 10, 2002

SquashBusters Bust StreetSquash

The Opening Ceremony gets underway at Brady Center

Nothing speaks better for the future of squash than a Sunday afternoon at the fabulous Yale Brady Squash Center. The occasion was the annual SquashBusters vs StreetSquash tournament. The facility was filled with kids from New York (Street Squash) and Boston (Squashbusters) competing to help their team take home the coveted silver trophy. Coming into this third annual tournament each team had won once. SquashBusters and StreetSquash are after-school youth enrichment programs that combine squash, tutoring/homework assistance, mentoring, and community service opportunities to a select group of kids each year. The program runs for three years from sixth through ninth grades, an important time to build confidence and learn lifetime skills. StreetSquash has extended the program to high school in a special program called StreetSquash Pro. SquashBusters will be extending their program when their new facility is completed at Northeastern University.

Program founders and directors,
George Polsky(l) from StreetSquash and
Greg Zaff from SquashBusters.

The SquashBusters team of 26 players and their fans and supporters drove down to Yale from Boston in a combination of six vans and cars. They arrived early and made immediate use of the courts to warm up, play practice games and enjoy the facility. The excitement level was so high their coach, Orla O'Doherty, Director of Squash, had to ask them to save some energy for their matches.

StreetSquash took the train up to New Haven from New York City and arrived about a half hour late in a caravan of taxis. The contingent of at least 60 strong; 26 players, plus coaches, mentors, parents, siblings, cousins, and friends quickly took their places and the traditional grand opening ceremony began.

Players refereed and ran the
fancy Yale electronic scoreboards.

Mark Talbott, the Yale women's squash coach, had representatives of both the men's and women's squash teams on court to present Greg Zaff and George Polsky, the directors/founders of the programs with a gift. They of course thanked Mark for Yale's hospitality for the use of the facility. Take a look at the schedule for use of the Yale facility over the next few months: the USSRA women's intercollegiate Howe Cup, Jr Nationals, and the Nationals. Even better than seeing these new squash centers being built, is seeing them being used. Mark Talbott is surely a gracious and accommodating host.

The highlight of the ceremony was the introduction of the players to their opponents. Each pairing exchanged a gift of their respective team T-shirts and the crowd cheered as each player ran through a line of their fellow teammates. At last, on with the games.

The SquashBuster girls dominated winning 13 out of 14 matches.

The squash was typical kid squash. Some of the younger, first year members had obvious jitters and some matches were mostly serve and miss matches. In contrast to the running around in the warm up period, they were frozen with tournament nerves-all part of the learning experience of competition. The SquashBuster girls dominated and won 13 of their 14 matches. A very exciting competitive match was developing between the two number one girls, when word came down that SquashBusters had already accumulated enough wins to take the tournament. A shame because I would have enjoyed watching the top talent battle it out at full force.

The boys played some close, tough, crowd pleasing
matches.

Most of the boys' matches went to 4 or 5 games. A few were hard fought nail biters, in one case a StreetSquash player came back from being down 1-2 in games and 0-7 in the fourth to win his match. In another SquashBusters player, Jean Paul, was down 0-2 in games and came back to win 10-8 in the fifth. The boys were close with SquashBusters winning 7 and StreetSquash 6. Final score SquashBusters 20, Street Squash 7.

Definitely some talent amongst these young competitors and obviously most have already become squash addicts. SquashBusters took home the trophy for the second straight year, but both teams left in good spirits having shared a day of good sportsmanship, team spirit, and fun-filled squash. The record stands:

2000 StreetSquash (NYC)

2001 SquashBusters (Boston)

2002 SquashBusters (Boston)

SquashBusters take home the trophy until the 2003 rematch.