Aiden Chiang ’26 represented Team USA at the British Junior Squash Open.
Andover Boys Squash celebrated Senior Night on Wednesday with a 7-0 victory over St. George’s. This was Andover’s 11th win in a row, and its last home match of the season. Andover’s record now stands at 14-2.
Aiden Chiang ’26 highlighted how dominant Andover was across the board on Wednesday. Through seven matches, the team only dropped one of the 22 sets that it played.
“It went pretty well, we only dropped one game today. And [the] rest of the matches, everyone won all three games today, so that was pretty good… One of the players on our team started hitting some errors, but he managed to win in four games, which is still pretty good,” said Chiang.
While one teammate is playing in squash, another referees the match simultaneously and provides insight to their teammate. During Chiang’s match, Will Weissman ’25 shared his insights with Chiang, and ultimately helped him secure the victory.
“So usually, the player reffing the match coaches you, and I guess they kind of want you to see what you’re doing wrong… And I feel like the information that they give you is always really helpful. Like today during the match I think Will, another player on the team, was coaching me and he told me to hit my shots deeper and tighter and that definitely helped me in the second game,” said Chiang.
Sean-Winston Luo ’24 acknowledged the efforts of Christian Graziano ’25, the team’s number one seed player. He admired Graziano’s humble character and commendable sportsmanship during his matches.
“The big shot I have is this kid named Christian Graziano. He’s been a really good sport lately, and I’m very proud of [him]. So in his matches, he’s been very fair with his referee decisions, [and] has been purposely giving us really good decisions. He’s also been very respectful towards opponents. And a lot of times we’re playing opponents that are worse than him, and he’s been very courteous to them and not just like messing around, but actually taking it seriously and giving everyone opportunities to improve,” said Luo.
With the team heading into the New England Interscholastic Squash Association (NEISA) tournament, Alexander Yang ’26 emphasized the importance of improving the team’s fitness levels. Yang reiterated Head Coach John Roberts’ points on maintaining stamina as the team heads into its championship matches.
“I would definitely say this week, our coach is stressing out that we do…more fitness because you obviously get back to back matches and we’re actually playing tough matches and top players from other schools. It would definitely help us if we just have a more consistent and stronger fitness level so that we can sustain for longer and play at a relatively good level for a longer amount of time,” said Yang.
Luo elaborated on the different drills the team has worked on to help improve athleticism. Techniques such as ghosting and using medicine balls are some of the approaches in improving strength, according to Luo.
“We do a lot of this thing called ‘Ghosting,’ where we play shots without hitting with the ball. So really a lot of movement, trying to increase our movement speed. We do this thing where it’s called ‘Ten Touches,’ which is where you run back and forth on the court and touch the ten, which is the front of the court and the shuffling back as fast as possible. So we’ve been doing that a lot, doing some off-court fitness with the medicine balls that have sort of outlines within it,” said Luo.
As of now, Andover is placed as the fourth seed in New England’s Class A Division. After placing sixth last year, the team hopes to get ranked higher in the top four. As for the Nationals, Andover hopes to get top eight this year, breaking its previous record of 11th place.
“I think we probably have the best team set up in a while. We’re trying to break some new boundaries. In England’s, top four place in, which the school has never done before. Our best seating place in Nationals is number 11, and we’re seated top eight this year. So we’re hoping to break our previous record, which we set last year,” said Luo
Andover Boys Squash will compete at the NEISA Championships this Saturday.
