Squash is a sport at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes that has been overlooked by the students in past years. Many students play other sports whereas others don’t even realize squash is a sport. But this year, there has been a massive uprising in its popularity. Last year, the team consisted of 30 boys and girls. However, this year, over fifty boys and girls are trying out. The enormous increase in popularity came as a surprise to the coaching staff, players, and the athletic directors at SSSAS. When asked about the explosive popularity of the squash team, Coach Koroma explained, “[There has been] almost exponential growth from where we’ve been. When we first started squash… we maybe had seven boys and two girls.”
Coach Koroma had lots to say about the new popularity of squash at this school. She was both surprised by the player count and hopeful for the season ahead. “We got some more interest out from some people who had never played squash before… our hope at the JV level… for this year was that with now having some seniors and juniors that had played in the program for a couple years, that we would be able to kind of progress to being a varsity level team.” Coach Koroma thinks that the reason for this increase was that, “we have some persuasive students in the Upper School who have been convincing their friends and convincing others what a great sport it is.”
Coach Koroma explained, “I think it’s also one of our winter options that has a lower time commitment… It’s not like a basketball schedule where you’re gonna play 25 to 30 games. Or like a swim team that has early morning practices.” She finished by saying, “We’re hopeful that we’ll continue to build skills and the confidence so that over time, we can play, maybe more competitively.”
According to the head coach of the squash team, Coach Gerrity, “the number [of squash players] was definitely a surprise at first. Our program has grown each year, but we jumped from about 28 players last year to almost 60 trying out this year, which obviously is a huge increase.” Many people were confused with the explosion in popularity, but Coach Gerrity explained that it is “in large part due to our returners, especially the juniors and seniors, who have recruited friends and enjoyed themselves in past seasons. It also helps that our middle school program is growing and that many of those players want to join the upper school team.” It shows how squash is growing simply because it is a fun sport that you can play with your friends, and the sport’s popularity at the middle school contributes greatly as well.
The other main question was if the player base of squash would grow or not, Gerrity says that he “would imagine that we will have a similar number of players trying out next year. It would be great to add more court time at the St. James so that we can accommodate more players.”
Throughout the tryouts, the coaches expressed their disappointment that there would have to be a large number of cuts, simply because the team did not have enough courts to accommodate such a large number of players. They are hopeful that if the sport continues to grow, and it looks like it will, they should be able to hold even more players on the team next year.
Because of the number of players this season, there unfortunately had to be many cuts. More than ten people did not make the team mainly because of how big the team was, and one of those people was senior Harry Biear. “I wasn’t expecting that. I thought there would be like, maybe 20 people maximum. I wasn’t prepared for that number of people,” he said. Because of the sheer amount of players, he felt that he couldn’t show the coaches his full skill. He explained, “I don’t think they saw my full potential. I think they saw a fraction of that. There were some good moments there, but it wasn’t perfectly represented.” Overall, Harry said he had a good time trying out a sport he had never played before and would like to invest more time into learning and improving his squash skills.
Captain of the squash team, Senior Sam Catlin expressed the similar excitement many have already shown for the season in his interview and has high hopes for the season. He said that “We didn’t expect 52 people to show up to the first practice, which was really insane compared to last year’s size. This means that we can have both a varsity and a JV for both the boys and girls teams, which is also super exciting for the program.”
The program is hopeful that the growth will continue as Catlin says, “the middle school program is becoming much larger too, which is really exciting… I definitely think it’s on an upward trajectory, and it’ll continue to become more and more prominent in the school’s culture.” Catlin, as a senior, is primarily focused on this season and is expecting improvement from years prior, saying, “Squash is a really versatile sport when it comes to the high skill level. But just having more players, I think it’s going to be a better season than previous seasons before… I can’t guarantee anything, but we’re definitely growing as a program. I think even after I graduate the program will continue to grow.”
Wins and losses won’t determine the success of this season, because it is already a great success with the huge growth in popularity and player base of the program this season.
