Excerpt from A History of Squash at The Episcopal Academy
But it was clear that the 2008-09 boys team would be serious contenders
to win it all, especially in light of the fact that the new campus in
Newtown Square opened in September 2008. Its 10 brand-new
glass-back-wall softball courts with “sprung” floors (to provide extra
“give”) constituted a squash paradise and were night-and-day different
from the obsolete 78-year-old Jefferson Shiel courts, with their
freezing temperatures, warped and slippery floors, minimal and cramped
viewing, hardball dimensions, dim lighting and chicken-wire netting to
keep errant balls from floating into the adjoining court. Named the
Sarah C. Madeira Squash Pavilion in honor of the woman who (with
partner Ann Page) won the inaugural U. S. Women’s Doubles in 1933, the
squash arena had a wing all to itself on the second floor of the Dixon
Gymnasium. Ms. Madeira was the bridge to six generations of Episcopal
Academy attendees, beginning with her father, Lewis Nielson, a member
of EA’s Magna Carta Society, and extending to Caroline Madeira, Class
of 2022, her great-great-grand-daughter.
There was also a new person in charge of the entire squash
operation, namely Joe Russell, who as a teenager growing up in England
had been in the same group of juniors as the multiple-time World and
British Open champion Nick Matthew. Russell frequently had attended the
junior squash camps that Bryan Patterson used to run in England during
the summers, and at one stage or another both Louisa and Colby Hall had
stayed with his family when they came over from the U. S. to
participate in those camps. When the new facility opened, the
administration was convinced, with 10 courts now in play rather than
only four, that someone was needed to organize and handle the
scheduling for the squash programs at the middle and high school levels
and oversee Physical Education classes, as well as give lessons and act
not only as the squash COACH for the students, but also as the squash
PRO for the residents of the community who were willing to pay for the
right to use the courts when the students were in class. Russell worked
with Gray and Lacerda on the girls side and Brian Callahan on the boys
side to allocate court time and coordinate their respective schedules,
and he did plenty of coaching on behalf of both teams as well, both in
practice and in dual meets and tournaments.
As had been the case with the girls team two years earlier
in the aftermath of the 2005-06 season, the boys team had gotten just
enough of a taste of the possibilities that lay before them in 2008 to
be hungry for a championship in 2008-09. Harrity, who had won a second
straight National Junior crown as a junior in 2008 (and would win it
for a third time in his final year of eligibility in 2009), had become
indisputably the best high school player in the land. The formidable
contingent behind him consisted of Brandon McLaughlin, ranked third in
the Under-19’s, at No. 2, Andrew McGuinness, Trevor’s brother and
ranked in the top five in the Under-17 category, at No. 3, Xander
Greer, Logan’s brother, at No. 4, with Tyler Odell, John Steele and
McLaughlin’s younger brother Devin, an 8th-grader, at No. 7.
Everything, from the Madeira Courts, to having the best
junior in the country, to their revamped coaching staff, to the fact
that Penn Charter would be weaker without the Domenicks and Callis,
appeared to be pointing in EA’s favor --- until the opening salvo of
the season, when the Brunswick squad came down to Philadelphia on a
two-day tour during which it played Penn Charter, Chestnut Hill,
Episcopal and Haverford, and returned to New England after having gone
four for four, including a 6-3 thumping of the perhaps over-confident
and definitely under-prepared Churchmen right in their brand-new home
(for some reason, the meet went nine players deep, even though all
official high-school dual meets and team tournaments were based on
seven players). The loss, which could have been deflating, instead was
galvanizing, as the chastened players went through the entire
undefeated season that followed with a sense of determination and
purpose that might not have been present in as full a measure had the
early-season loss to Brunswick not occurred.
“RIGHT HERE IN THIS CAR”
Each player worked with Russell to address weaknesses that
had presented themselves in their respective matches, with an eye
towards resolving them and turning them into strengths. As one example,
McGuinness had hit too many loose balls, allowing his opponent, Spencer
Hurst, to body him even further out of position and convert the
openings for winners. In their subsequent on-court sessions, Russell
worked hard with McGuinness on making his drives tighter and on
establishing better front-court position. In the car ride up to New
Haven for the High School championships, McGuinness had been in the
same vehicle with Harrity and the McLaughlin brothers, the three
Episcopal players who had won their matches against Brunswick, and
Brandon McLaughlin had forcefully made the point that “the championship
is right here in this car,” meaning that, if the four of them could all
win their matches in a possible rematch with Brunswick in the final,
that would be enough to clinch the outcome.
The Bruins, as the Brunswick team was known, had some painful
memories to expunge of their own. Winners of seven of the last nine New
England Interscholastic titles, they had, however, lost the 2008
edition of that tournament to St. Paul’s, and their loss to Penn
Charter in the 2008 U. S. High School final had marked the fourth
straight year in which they had reached the final without ever having
emerged victorious. They also were unhappy about being seeded second
behind Episcopal after having handily beaten the Churchmen in their own
building in November, and lodged a challenge to that decision to U. S.
Squash official Dent Wilkens, the Tournament Chairman. Wilkens
explained that the seeding was determined by a formula that took the
team members’ individual rankings into account, and he refused to
change the seeding.
This somewhat contentious backdrop aside, both teams
strode to the final, which was held in front of an overflowing crowd
composed mostly of Brunswick supporters who had made the relatively
short trek from Greenwich to New Haven. Dave McNeely, 13 years removed
from his own sparkling EA career during the mid-1990’s, was on site
that weekend to assist Coaches Russell and Callahan and to offer
support and dispense between-games advice. Throughout the season, he
had made an attempt to stop by the courts and play practice games with
the team members at least once per week. The rotation on the two courts
on which the final was played specified that the Nos. 5 and 7 players
would compete in the opening shift. As it happened, the Episcopal
players in those positions were the team’s two youngest players, namely
No. 5 Tyler Odell and No. 7 Devin McLaughlin, who could easily have
been intimidated by the vocal and heavily pro-Brunswick crowd,
especially when each ran into trouble in his match. Odell lost his
first game to Cooper Briggs (whose father, Peter Briggs, had been
elected to the U. S. Squash Hall of Fame a few years earlier), who had
beaten him in the scrimmage the prior autumn, and McLaughlin found
himself in a fifth game with John Dudzik. A Brunswick sweep of those
two positions, or even a split, would have given the New Englanders
major momentum heading into the remaining matches.
But both Philadelphia youngsters came through and
decisively closed out the last games of their respective matches,
thereby administering a body blow from which Brunswick would never
recover, especially given the fact that the strength of the team was
viewed as lying in its exceptional depth and ability to dominate the
lower portion of the lineup. “When Cooper and John lost, I knew we were
in trouble,” its longtime coach Jim Stephens acknowledged afterwards.
“We never lose at those spots. They were tough matches.” So were the
two second-shift matches between No. 3 players Andrew McGuinness and
Hurst and No. 6’s John Steele and his Brunswick opponent Jamie Davies.
McGuinness, as mentioned, had had trouble coping with Hurst’s physical
play when they had met in the early-season scrimmage, but in this
rematch the work that he and Joe Russell had put in made him much
better prepared and mentally stronger. Even after missing out on a
chance to end the match in three games when he dropped a tiebreaker in
the third, McGuinness knew that he was in control and he jumped out
early in the close-out fourth, never looking back en route to an 11-3
win that virtually sealed Brunswick’s fate, with Harrity waiting in the
wings and ready to provide the fourth point if needed.
On the adjoining court, Steele lost the first game and
fell behind 6-0 in the second against Davies. But Davies had shown a
vulnerability late in crucial matches in the New England
Interscholastics loss to St. Paul’s one year earlier when he let a two
games to love lead get away against Jamie Wilson (who won the fifth
game 9-0) in the deciding match of the weekend. That backdrop may have
played a role in this five-game match as well, in which Steele took the
fifth 11-8 to clinch the national championship for Episcopal. Though
nicknamed “Rag Doll” by his teammates due to the way he often seemed to
be flailing off-balance at the ball, Steele was a superb retriever who
had an exceptional ability to score points on his tightly-angled
working-boasts off either flank, and he won a number of crucial matches
during his Episcopal squash career. Harrity and Brandon McLaughlin both
proceeded to straight-game their opponents, and Brunswick got its only
win when Parker Hurst prevailed against Xander Green at No. 4.
Episcopal was denied a boys/girls double that day when its girls team,
captained by Sarah Mumanachit, lost its final against Greenwich Academy
5-2, the fourth straight year in which these two teams had met in the
final round of this tournament.
Mumanachit was quiet and unassuming, but Coach Lacerda
described her as “a great team member and leader.” Her parents owned
various Thai restaurants in the area. During those years there was a
schedule for which parents/families would bring snacks for each match
throughout the season, and when it was her family’s turn, her parents
would bring dumplings to matches, which were always a huge hit with the
players. At the end of the season, she wrote a letter to her
teammates congratulating them on winning the Inter-Ac and MASA
championships and reaching the final of the High School Nationals, and
expressing the hope that all of them “will continue to work hard in not
only squash but also in the other passions in your life with, as I
always say, no regrets.” Mumanachit certainly had no cause to regret
anything about her post-Episcopal squash career, as she then joined her
older sister Sandra on the Harvard women’s team that won the 2010
national college team championship. She would also be part of Crimson
title runs in both 2012 and 2013, when she and Kingshott served as
co-captains.
CONTINUED SUCCESS
Afterwards, Coach Russell was widely praised for imbuing
“a sense of spirit, camaraderie and classiness to the team that was not
matched by any other team,” according to one of the many Academy
parents who had traveled to Connecticut to support the team. The parent
continued, “He instructed each player to stand up straight, dress
neatly in EA attire, and act appropriately on and off the court.
No details were spared --- he even told the players to smile, speak
clearly and look straight into recipients’ eyes when shaking hands with
opponents, coaches, referees or others. The boys cheered on the
girls, who in turn supported the boys teams. I heard more remarks
from the parent spectators and coaches about our teams' sportsmanship
and maturity than about their exceptional athleticism and talent. I am
thrilled that Joe Russell's first year at EA concluded with a
triumvirate wins of the Inter-Ac, MASA and US High School titles.
We could not have asked for more. We look forward to continued
success.”
There would be plenty of that, even after Harrity
graduated that spring and headed to Princeton (moving from one brother
to another, i.e. from Coach Brian Callahan EA ’85 at Episcopal to Coach
Bob Callahan EA ‘73 at Princeton), where he promptly ascended into the
No. 1 position and embarked on a sparkling intercollegiate career in
which he won the Intercollegiate Individual crown once and got to the
final two other times; contributed a crucial win to Princeton 5-4
victory in the 2012 national team championship final that finally broke
Trinity’s 13-year hold on that title; and became the second EA alumnus
(preceded by Jim Zug ’58 in 1962) to receive the William Roper Award,
“given annually to a Princeton senior man of high scholastic rank and
outstanding qualities of sportsmanship and general proficiency in
athletics.” Harrity then turned pro and won the U. S. Nationals in 2015
and 2016. He is currently ranked in the World top 50 and has
represented the U. S. in the biennial World Team Championships in both
Paderborn, Germany, in 2015 and Marseilles, France, in 2017. A profile
on Harrity early in his senior year that appeared in a December 2008
issue of The Scholium ended with an assertion from him ---“Never let
anyone tell you what your limits are. You can achieve anything through
hard work and the only limitation is your mind” --- that exemplifies
both Harrity’s squash career and the Episcopal boys team mind-set
throughout that championship season.
Indeed, part of that mind-set, and an additional motivating
factor that over-rode that entire season, was a strong team-wide
determination to not allow Harrity, who was revered as both a team
leader and friend to all the players, to end his Episcopal career
without winning a U. S. High School National championship. Years later
Odell wrote, “We really wanted to win for Todd. He had achieved
everything in squash and we wanted him to finish off his high school
career with the one national championship he hadn’t won. Todd is an
incredible team player and always helped guide out entire team through
his demonstration of sportsmanship and hard work.”
