By Hudson Pace

This year, four Collegiate seniors—Rohan Agarwal, T Rigby, Sam Smith, and Hudson Leonard—started a squash club team. All new to the sport, they thought it would be an interesting way to fulfill a winter sports credit. As mentioned in Rigby’s Senior Speech on Jan. 19, Agarwal initially approached the group, offering the idea of starting the team and holding their practices at the Country Club of Virginia (CCV). They enrolled in lessons with the head squash instructor at CCV, Patrick Chifunda, who taught them all the rules of the game. Smith says, “it was a struggle, certainly, at first. Adjusting to the bounce of the ball was the most difficult part.”

They practiced every day after school, with their lessons on either Tuesday or Thursday. After a few weeks of practice, the team began to perform some intrasquad competitions. “These were a lot of fun. We got to test our skill against each other and continue to learn the ins and outs of squash,” says Agarwal. 

As the team continued to get better, Chifunda discussed the opportunity to compete against another team. At first, the Cougar squad was unsure if their skills could match up against the likes of St. Christopher’s or St. Catherine’s, who had far more experienced players. Leonard remarked, “I thought he was crazy suggesting the idea of playing another team, but then Patrick explained to us how much better we have gotten in such a short time, and how if we continued to practice, we could compete.” After initial hesitation, the team decided to compete against St. Catherine’s on February 2 at the CCV. 

Leading up to the event, the team was nervous. They questioned their abilities and whether their team was ready to play against much more experienced players. Agarwal says, “I wasn’t sure what to expect. We had only been playing for a couple of weeks and were now competing in a real match.” 

As the two teams stepped on the court, both teams’ players introduced themselves to their competitors. The Collegiate team was a combination of Upper and Middle Schoolers who have expressed interest in the club. Many of the Middle Schoolers have competed or practiced with Chifunda before. The first to compete for the seniors was Rigby. He lost his match two games to none. However, he claims this was due to him losing a contact lens: “If I had my contacts in, this match would have gone a different way.” Rigby went on to say, “I definitely grew as a squash player during that match. Even though I lost, I enjoyed being able to see my improvement as a player.”

I arrived at the match at around 5:30 p.m. on that Thursday and was able to witness Agarwal compete against his St. Catherine’s opponent. I was unsure of the rules with squash but quickly learned what each line represented. You need to serve over the middle line, but then you can hit the ball anywhere on the wall in return. The hardest part seems to be returning the serve, as the bounce off the wall is usually very inconsistent.

Agarwal’s match got off to a hot start, as he took a 4-0 lead. His first game came all the way down to the end, when he, unfortunately, lost 8-11. He said, “I needed to keep the momentum off my hot start, but [the opponent’s] serves posed a problem.” The second game had a similar result. Agarwal’s opponent got off to a strong start, and he was unable to claw back. Although he lost his match, he said he enjoyed “the competitive aspect that the match possessed.”

Even though the squash team didn’t win their first match, they were excited about how far they had come in just a couple of weeks. Rigby says, ”I had my doubts at first about this team, for sure, but as we came together and practiced, I could not be more excited about how far we came.” 

Next year, Collegiate, along with Patrick Chifunda, are working on creating a real team, with scheduled matches and practices. This team would be eligible for Upper and Middle School players to compete against other schools. After witnessing lots of interest from players of different ages, I think Collegiate will easily find players to fill out the roster. 

All photos by Gauri Gulati.