After losing only three Seniors from the Class of 2008, the Girls Squash team is looking forward to yet another promising season in 2009. Led by returning Seniors Lydia Smith, Christine Choi, Lauren Wilmarth and Nicole Wagner, the girls kick off the season with a scrimmage against St. Georges, Westminster and Milton Academy on Wednesday, December 7. The returning lettermen will be joined by Kim Kohn ’10, Emelyn Chew ’10 and Amanda Howland ’11. Unfortunately, in her second season as Captain, Senior Carolyn Brown is out with a torn ACL, leaving a definite void in the lineup. In the meantime, she is working on a project that coach Tom Hodgson has dubbed “Code Blue.” Senior lacrosse and soccer star Emily Little and post-graduate tennis player Greta Rossi are training with Brown with hopes that they will become a force on the courts later in the season. The team is filled with tons of talent. So far, practice has been centered on correcting grips and perfecting strokes. Coach Hodgson places emphasis on the serve; so much of practice thus far has been serve-intensive. Once the skill set of the players is refined, Coach Hodgson hopes to move toward practices focused on more fitness and match play. The team faired well last year, playing in the National High School Tournament sponsored by US Squash. Andover was seeded into the third division and played three close matches against top competitors. The team lost two close matches to the Chapin School and Westover School, and won a close match against the Springfield School to hold onto the #22 rank in the nation. Coach Hodgson was especially impressed with the sportsmanship of the girls. In recent years, the team has been pretty evenly matched with archrival Exeter, but has seemed to struggle against the loaded Nobles and Greenough squad. Last year, Nobles managed to completely sweep both Varsity and JV1, while Andover was able to scrounge up a win at the bottom of JV2. The Andover team has their work cut out for them at the beginning of the season, facing Groton and Choate in the first two real matches of the season, both of which are away matches. With that in mind, Lydia Smith ’09 said, “It’s going to be tough, but I am very optimistic about this season. We have a great group of girls and we are going to have a lot of fun.”
