Squash Club

Dec 8th 2009

Nov 09 League Summary

Before I go into details I have to say this November was a truly amazing month. Not only was essentially every game completed despite the shorter month due to Thanksgiving, but also every box had very exciting battles going on. At this point I would like to thank you, the players, for making the league what it is today.

When setting up the league roster in the beginning of the month I was particularly curious to see the outcomes of this month's Box A. One reason was the return of Kartik Gopal from a multi month absence. Maybe you do remember, he left the league with an almost perfect ranking score and I wanted to see how he would measure up to the new competition. During the last months we had some new rising stars like Adam Rafalovich and Sandeep Dube. Also Jan Halvorsen played himself up after a series of injuries earlier this year. Unfortunately I had to learn that Adam Rafalovich decided to leave the club due to his long commute. I am still crossing my fingers that the itch for squash will bring him back. The other player who dropped out early in Box A was Brian Daellenbach. A heavy work schedule made it impossible to compete seriously. Nevertheless all this didn't steal the thunder in Box A. Every time I checked, Jan Halvorsen posted another victory which led him to become November champion. Kartik Gopal tried his best to reclaim the throne, but in the end the match against Jan turned out to be the tie breaker for Jan. Great job! Sandeep Dube and Callum McCowan weren't able to stop neither Jan nor Kartik.

Box B was essentially divided into two groups. Joe Zhang and Ravi Lal clearly demonstrated their strength to the rest of the box. I personally watched the game between Joe and Ravi. There is no question that Joe has improved his game giving Ravi serious headaches. In the end Joe secured the top box spot for himself leaving Ravi in second. Once again I was taken out by an injury and hopefully will be back in January. In the "sub Box B" Raymund Mui, David Davies, and Ivan Castellanos fought for every point. In the end Raymund came out ahead followed by David and Ivan which were separated by just a single point.

In Box C there was another close race for the box victory among Andres Ariza, Loralee Campbell, and Ken Kawaiwaiaea. Loralee came out ahead leading just by a single point over the other two contenders. Final points said very little in the games between Denis Langlais, Diane Eardley, and Sandesh Putturaya. I wish I had seen some of the games.

In Box D "the Stig" aka Goof Ball was put in his place by "The Bald Bob" aka Bob Anderson. Bob won this box with a comfortable three point lead over Goof Ball in second. In third place, Chris Evans took a hefty penalty by not completing all his games. This is just a reminder that the higher up you move, the less margin for error there is. The mixed scores between Diana Augspurger, Don Evans, and Jason Giddings indicate great competition. Overall this box looked like fun.

I always enjoy summing up Box E since here you will find the stars of tomorrow. This month Jeff Summers dominated clearly. Losing just a single game, he finished with an almost perfect score in first place. Chuck Scott followed him in the runner up spot only being defeated by Jeff. In the sub box, all other games among Bruce Hergert, Greg Kautz, and Carlos Tokunaga were close. Historically the battles in this box are always nail bitters which is nicely illustrated by Carlos Tokunaga taking away the only lost game from the box winner Jeff Summers. Good job everyone! Just one last word of advice: Don't be shy to play stronger players. That's the ultimate way to gain an edge over your fellow box members and learn the tricks of the game very quickly.

See you at the courts!