Top Gun

By Brett Erasmus

Last weekend the country's finest college squash players gathered in Hartford to see who is the top gun for the 2010 season. Harvard took the honors, with the best male and female players, Colin West and Laura Gemmell respectively.

And a Harvard junior who you may know, Jason Michas, won the mens' B section trophy. Last year he played in the MSRA 5.5 league in New York under the tutelage of Richard Chin. It is nice to see Harvard take all these awards after another dominating season by the Trinity Mens' team. In fact, this is the first time in over a decade that the mens' title has not gone to either Trinity or Princeton. This can only be good for the game. And for American squash.



Great young players seem to be continuously arriving on the scene. In fact, the general level of squash play in the US is increasing at a rapid rate. And that's the thing about squash: A talent can develop to a point that a good junior player can not only play someone twice his/her size and many times their strength, but actually out-match them.

I saw that happen this week in the MSRA 3.5 league, in fact. An 11 year old beat a friend of mine (a grown man) in a really competitive match. It was pretty amazing to watch the young man stick to his game plan, almost without falter. Needless to say, the sweet part (for me) is that, for years to come, I get to tease my friend about the day he lost to an 11 year old kid.

Last weekend many American players rose to the top of college squash, an arena which foreign players for the most part have dominated until now (in recent memory anyway). I suspect that in years to come, the best of the best will hail from the US.