All Five Programs win at least one event in Field of 230 Entrants.

Urban Nationals Play at Groton School Showcased 230 entrants. Here Alija Hogans vs Seetron Torres (photo © Chris Smith)

Trailing two games to love against his CitySquash club-mate Chris Fernandez, Prince Mensah bootstrapped his way through three consecutive tiebreaker sessions, saving match-balls against him in both the fourth and fifth games, and culminating in an 8-10 3-9 10-8 10-9 10-8 victory in the final round of the Boys Under-15 division of the fifth annual National Urban Squash And Education Association (NUSEA) Individual Championships, hosted this past weekend at Groton, a prestigious prep school in Massachusetts. Mensah, who trailed 8-6 in the fifth before mounting his final charge, thereby engineered his second successful comeback effort in less than 24 hours, as he had trailed Seetron Torres two games to one in the semis Saturday afternoon before eventually prevailing 9-6 in the fifth.

The foregoing was by far the most exciting of the eight finals that were contested this past Sunday afternoon as the closing chapter of three days of virtually constant play, with more than 230 entrants overloading Groton’s remarkable 12-court facility in a squash extravaganza of competition and camaraderie. In the Boy’s under-13 flight, Jordan Collins rose superior to his fellow METROSquash counterpart Christian Williams in four games, while in the Under-17’s, Citysquash torch-bearer Freddy Hernandez, the ’06 Under-15 champion as well as the recipient of the Urban Squash Award designated for that participant who best exemplifies the ideals and goals of Urban Squash, successfully moved up one age level with a solid 3-0 final-round win over Joshua Gray of StreetSquash. The Under-19 flight was won by David Nash of StreetSquash in a four-game final-round win over Pedro Souza of SquashBusters, who had gotten to that stage by rallying from 5-7 to 9-7 in his exciting semifinal match against eventual third-place finisher Patrick Williams.

Urban Nationals Girls division Play at Groton School - Ashley Brooks vs Samantha Matos (photo © Chris Smith)

In the Girls divisions, CitySquash star Jesse Pacheco successfully defended the Under-15’s title she had won last year with a compelling straight-set final over Squashbusters' Andrea Tran, while Tran’s club-mate Ngozi Mwaoha won the Under-13’s in a similar three vs. CitySquash’s Lanique Rhyne. Ashley Brooks of SquashBusters out-played last year’s Under-15’s runner-up Samantha Matos of StreetSquash  in the Under-17’s final, and in the Under-19’s, Trinity College-bound SquashBusters standout Monete Johnson went from the high of receiving the ’07 Urban Squash Award at the Saturday evening dinner to the low of having to retire due to illness the following day after she had lost the first two games of her final against Tempest Bowden of SquashSmarts.

In sum, CitySquash collected three winner's trophys, SquashBusters two, and MetroSquash, StreetSquash and SquashSmarts one each, in the most evenly distributed result in the five-year history of this growing event.

Urban Nationals boasted 230 engaged players. (photo © Chris Smith)