Feb 3, 2006

By Rob Dinerman for SquashTalk © 2006

Casserly Stays Undefeated In 5-2 Win

Exeter No. 1 Michael Maruca scored an impressive four-game victory over his Andover counterpart Dan Wagman and Maruca's teammate and fellow junior Ed Casserly maintained his undefeated dual-meet record so far this season in spurring the Big Red to a 5-2 home victory at the recently-dedicated Fisher Squash Center over their arch-rivals from Andover this past Wednesday afternoon. The teams are scheduled to meet again on February 22nd, this time at Andover, in the last team match of the season, which concludes the following weekend with the New England Interscholastic Championships at Middlesex and Groton.

Maruca and Wagman had never played each other prior to this week, but Casserly had lost last year to his Andover opponent Derek deSvastich, which must have made this 9-7 10-9 6-9 9-3 result especially satisfying. So was the win that the host team got at the No. 3 position from sophomore Luke Lee, who lost the fourth game of his battle with Simon Keyes but was able to respond to this setback by fully asserting himself in sweeping through a 9-0 fifth game.

Andover demonstrated admirable depth in taking the Nos. 4 and 6 matches.
At No. 4, Graham Miao, the Hong Kong-born Andover freshman, out-played Exeter soccer captain Micah Wood, while at No. 6, Miao's teammate Sam Woolford dropped only the first game before controlling the remainder of his match with Exeter senior Alex Ha, who faded in the second half of their four-game match. But these reversals were counter-balanced by Big Red victories by senior David Paik and junior Peter Jang over Sam Gould and Andy Yoon respectively, thereby accounting for the 5-2 overall tally.

The New England prep-school calendar really heats up during the final three weeks of the season. Exeter, which now has a 5-4 record, plays St. Georges School next Wednesday prior to competing in the third annual National High-School Team Championships that weekend at Yale and Choate. The following weekend the Big Red will play a strong Belmont Hill squad on Friday and both Tabor and St. Pauls on Saturday, with the second part of the home-and-home with Andover the following Wednesday, three days before the season-finale New England Interschols.

Meet Recap (Exeter 5, Andover 2)

No. 1: Michael Maruca (E) d Dan Wagman (A) 9-3 5-9 9-5 9-1;
No. 2 Ed Casserly (E) d Derek deSvastich (A), 9-7 10-9 6-9 9-3;
No. 3 Luke Lee (E) d Simon Keyes (A), 5-9 9-5 9-3 6-9 9-0;
No. 4 Graham Miao (A) d Micah Wood (E), 9-6 9-7 10-9;
No. 5 David Paik (E) d Sam Gould (A), 9-4 9-1 9-3;
No. 6 Sam Woolford (A) d Alex Ha (E), 7-9 9-6 9-1 9-3;
No. 7 Peter Jang (E) d Andy Yoon (A), 7-9 9-19-1 9-5.