This past weekend, Boys Squash headed to Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter) to compete at New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC). Ultimately, the team placed fourth. On Wednesday, the team beat Exeter 8-0. The team’s record currently stands at 15-2.
Sean Winston Lou ’24 highlighted a particular senior on the team that had a strong performance against Exeter on Wednesday. Lou believed it was a great way for the Senior to complete his last season as Andover, as the Senior won his final match.
“A lot of the Seniors weren’t able to play, and there was only one Senior actually playing and he had a really close match. His match was the final match, and it was really fun to have everyone there, everyone on the team, cheering him on. He ended up winning in the end. I think it was a good send-off for his last Senior match,” said Luo.
Christian Graziano ’25 described the weekend’s matches and the team’s disappointment in their loss to St. Paul’s on Sunday. The loss led to the fourth place placement, in which Graziano felt the team could have placed higher.
“I’d say it was a very average weekend. Our rival is Hotchkiss, that’s kind of like our squash rival because we’re very equally matched with them. We all played very well on Saturday morning, played well in discipline, and we beat Hotchkiss 5-2. [We] were feeling good about that. And then Saturday night, we played the national champions from last year, Kent. Kent has some very talented players. They sweeped us, but this was after we were in Class A’s, and made the semi-finals. And this morning [Sunday morning] we were very upset at our performance. We played St. Paul’s, we were higher seeded than they were and we should have won that but we ended up losing,” said Graziano.
Corey Shen ’26 confirmed Graziano’s sentiment that the team could have done better and beaten St. Paul’s on Sunday.
“Our team did pretty well, we got fourth place overall in New England’s. We definitely could have done better, but the matches were pretty tight, and so we lost against St. Paul’s for the three/four play-off. It was definitely a match we could have won, but there’s no sweat because we’ll be playing them at Nationals,” said Shen.
However, Shen highlighted Will Weissman ’25 as a player who did exceptionally well against St. Paul’s. Not only did Weissman play higher than his seed, but he also beat his opponent in all three games, shocking not only the team but his opponent as well.
Shen said, “Against St. Paul’s Will Weissman, he played number six, but he’s our number seven seed. He played very well. He played [the same] opponent he played not too long ago…where he actually went to five sets with and that was a very tight match. But I don’t know what happened to Will, but he was popping off and playing very well, and he beat his opponent in three games. Everyone was stunned and even his opponent was shocked at how well Will played.”
With the season coming to an end, Lou described the team’s strong efforts throughout the season and his immense pride in all of them. As Nationals approaches, Andover will be up against St. Paul’s once again, giving the team another chance, as Lou stated.
Luo said, “I’m really proud of the boys this season. I think we’ve done a really great job, I think our personal best. I think we’re like 15 and two, which is a great record. Looking forward we have Nationals coming up and a really tight first round match against the tenth seed, St. Paul’s, and they just beat us this past weekend. So we have to be careful there but I’m hoping we’ll do well in Nationals against some really tough competition.”
Boys Squash will continue to play at Nationals until Sunday.
