Andover vs Belmont Hill: 3-4 L
Andover vs Deerfield 6-1 L
This past week, Boys Squash kicked off its season with two tough losses. On Monday, the team narrowly fell to Belmont Hill in a closely contested match, and later in the week, Andover faced a challenging matchup against Deerfield, resulting in a 1-6 defeat. Despite the slow start, the team’s resilience and commitment to growth suggest a promising season lies ahead.
Jonathan Xu ’28 reflected on the challenges the team faced leading up to this week’s games. While the team had trained rigorously during the off-season to prepare for the season, they also participated in intense challenge matches the week prior. These matches, designed to determine player rankings and seeds, added a significant layer of fatigue, which Xu believed played a major role in Andover’s losses.
“Since it was the first match of the season, we were just kind of going into it with nice confidence. The team morale wasn’t really high since we had some tough challenge matches just a few days before the official match. A lot of kids were really tired. But it was good preparation. So the thing about challenge matches is it was pretty tough to get over it — a lot of challenge matches were really close,” said Xu.
Adding onto his previous point, Xu gave an example of how fatigue affected the team by highlighting Ali Gamal ’26’s deciding match in the team’s loss against Belmont Hill. Even though Gamal was up 2 sets at the beginning of his game, Gamal quickly became tired and unfortunately lost his game, resulting in Andover losing 3-4. However, Xu applauded Gamal for his mental strength despite the match loss.
“We were going in really confident because we were up in match scores against Belmont Hill at first. But it was really interesting because the reason why [Gamal] lost in five [sets] was because he was just really tired from the challenge matches, and he wasn’t able to properly prepare for this match. It was really close. He did a really good job mentally being able to keep up even though he was consistently losing in the last few games,” said Xu.
John-Jayden Winston-Luo ’28, younger brother of former squash Co-Captain Sean Winston-Luo ’23, shared his thoughts on the team’s loss, highlighting the importance of maintaining composure during high-pressure moments. He also praised the captains for their positivity and support in consoling the team after the narrow defeat to Belmont Hill.
“After we lost, we all sat in a circle and reflected on it: how we lost and how we can improve next time. And that was pretty much led by the captains. They were like, ‘It’s only the first match of the season and we have a long season ahead of us.’ They just told us that this loss was fine because we got a little unlucky and to let go of it and just focus on the next one,” said Winston-Luo.
For the match against Deerfield, Corey Shen ’26 spoke about the team’s expectations beforehand. Having lost twice to Deerfield during major tournaments such as New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (New Englands) and Nationals, Shen had low expectations for the match.
“Deerfield is a formidable opponent and their [roster is] very deep. They got a really strong top half as well. Their top three are very strong. We knew no points were going to be easy, no games were going to be easy. So we tried to stick it through. Obviously fell a little short, but it’s definitely a learning experience,” said Shen.
Although Co-Captain Avery Lin ’25 lost 3-0 in his match, Shen still applauded Lin for being relentless throughout the match, reflecting Lin’s character. He believes the more the team continues to show perseverance and determination, the better results the team will start to see.
“A memorable match would be Avery Lin’s. He’s got raw tenacity, and no matter what his opponent gave him, he just never gave up. He’d be tracking that ball down. Even though he lost 3-0, the scores of the games were still quite close. And he hung in there whenever he could. It’s a brilliant reflection of his character, how great of a person he is,” said Shen.
Furthermore, Shen thanked Girls Squash for its continuous support this week. Even though Girls Squash was not required to watch Boys Squash’s matches against Belmont Hill and Deerfield, the team still showed up and cheered on the players by making cutouts of all the individual players’ faces and cheering relentlessly.
“[Girls Squash was] cheering us on the whole time. They brought their whole team over. They had little cutouts of our faces, which sounds funny, but in the grand scheme of things, just knowing that we had another team supporting us, it helped us a lot. And we couldn’t really rise to the occasion today, but at least we’re very happy with the crowd we got and the support we were able to receive,” said Shen.
Boys Squash will play against Milton at home on December 18.
