November in NJ is seeing mild temperatures outside, but hot work on the courts! This past Saturday saw Rehearsal Tournament #3 well contested with three new divisional winners and a million stories. As always, many thanks to Coach Claire for her masterful draws and timings, which ensured we had the matches we needed, when we needed them. An equally large congratulations to all the players who competed their hearts out with skill and sportsmanship, across the three divisions.
The lead story of the Premier Division was the absence of the Big Dog! Coach Jamie was detailed in Vancouver, playing in the quarter finals of the Sport Central Open. Obviously not a quick commute back, Jamie’s absence meant there would be a new #1 in the Premier League. Shout out to our Touring Pro, his flight did get back from Canada in the wee hours of Sunday, and Jamie was at the club for Sunday 10am squads looking bright eyes and bushy tailed and passing on some of the lessons he gleaned from Vancouver! Lucky to have our Touring Pro’s and he and Claire provide enormous value each and every week.
Back to the event, performance of the Premier Division definitely went to our Champion Alex. Not only winning, Alex played excellent quality squash, showing the benefit of his recent work and dominated Arjun, Eric and JJ on the way to the title. Similarly our runner up, JJ, did well to get past Pragun and Claire before running into an immovable object named Alex in the final. Great preparation for much of our top division, with Alex, JJ, Claire, Lily and Eric all getting on a flight this week to contest the West Coast JCT! Fingers crossed everyone plays to their potential and brings home the proverbial bacon.
Division 1 saw newcomer David, a solid BU13 come in and scoop the trophy away! This was the first time D1 was won by someone not named Edward, so a bit of a change for everyone and Tyler did his level best in the final to keep the trophy in house, losing a tight 2/1 and playing up a storm. Similarly Adam, Kevin, Allen and Andrew all played big matches with skill and great sportsmanship. Well done all - a great day of match play and exactly what Rehearsal Tournaments are all about!
Division 2 saw Colin coming away with the gold, with Larry and Neil filling out the podium. D2 as always gives us the epics that we so desire and this was no different. Dev, Ronnie, Jesse and Jay are improving outrageously well each week and destined to make their mark in the US Squash world due course! Can’t wait! We let the D2 crew run on the glass courts this event and although it’s not a dedicated stream of court BLUE, you can catch much of the action from their matches via our YOUTUBE channel.
Looking forward, our next Rehearsal Event will be contested, as always, the first Saturday of next month, this time falling on December 3 and you can enter via our dedicated webpage. Many questions remain to be answered. Will Jamie come to take the trophy back, similarly will Edward and Evan manage 3rd titles and as always, can our U11 crew look even more polished and further impress us all? All of this and more will be answered next month, don’t miss out - entries HERE!