NOW THAT’S REPRESENTING!

Windsor Tournament Nov 4-6

I could not be prouder. Well, I could be if we had won every category but that would be asking a little much. For the longest time I have been pleading to the squash membership to support the local tournaments in our area in a similar fashion that the outside community support ours. And finally the call was answered. For the Windsor Fall Down Classic, we had 15 – yes, fifteen – members represent the DAC! Nothing short of a sensational effort. (And if you count me, it would be 16!)

The Walking Dead: Sante Fratarcangeli
and Alan Howard enjoying a beer.



With so many players, you would think that we just must win at least one category, right? It reminds me a bit of the zombie apocalypse. If you are confronted by just one zombie, it’s not very difficult to kill it. But have 15 come at you, and chances are at least one will reach its goal. The D draw was dominated by DAC players. By Sunday morning, all that was left standing in the semi finals were our members. (Our zombies got through!) It was a lock. It was also very tough squash. Both semi finals were brutal 5 set matches with Sante Fratarcangeli beating Walter Fisher and Alan Howard surviving Mark Monaghan 16-14 in the 5^th game. Taking into consideration that both of them also played the C draw, I’m not sure how much fitness played a part in the final, but I can’t imagine Alan’s or Sante’s legs felt terribly fresh. Alan took the first game before Sante picked up his game and managed to roll off the next 3 to take the title. By the time I turned up on Sunday, both players were enjoying their after match amber refreshment with dreamy smiles…

Keeping on a winning note, Peter Logan teamed up with ex-DAC member Mark Eugeni in the Doubles A. A formidable team no doubt, but looking through the draw it seemed they were the only ones. Competition was light for them and they slaughtered everybody 3-0 on the way to an easy victory.

The next best result came from Ken MacDonald in the C draw. Ken has been struggling of late with his form but it appeared he hit himself out of it. He reached the semi finals before surrendering 3-2 and mentioned he was relatively pleased with his performance.

Not to downgrade anyone else’s endeavors because everyone pushed themselves to win as best they could – as they should. But again I repeat how thrilled I was to see so many DAC faces. The other members that entered were: Anthony Fracchia (won a match in the A draw and lost the quarters of B’s in 5); Andy Adamo; John Roarty; Paul Ward (lost semi final of the B cons); Justin Jacobs (lost the final of the C cons in 5); Patrick Petz; Rich Stimson; David Devine; and John Dunwoody. I played the very small 5-man Open draw and won the final 3-0 over Mark Eugeni. Thank you to the members who stayed and watched the match.

Hopefully, this wasn’t a flash in the pan. The next local tournament that I know of is actually our own – the DAC Classic – from February 9-12, but there will be another Windsor event end of March and you can’t forget about the Toledo Classic either at the start of March. I expect a lot of our members to play our event, but if we could get another 10-15 to the others as well, we’ll be looking rather pristine. I can’t tell you enough how much playing these events helps your squash.