BY THE PAINT OF OUR SQUASH RACQUETS

 Cross Border Challenge - September 8, 2018

I felt it was a little early in the season to run this event, but every year it seems more difficult to find dates that suit both the DAC and Windsor schedules. The Saturday after Labor Day was always going to be iffy… kids are back at school, the summer is almost over, everybody is trying — grudgingly — to adjust to the hectic fall and winter that will no doubt make us wish it was already May once more.

Signups trickled in and eventually we did rustle up enough enthusiastic brave-hearts to defend our Cross Border Challenge title - a purposely beat up, trashed trophy that we have been proudly displaying in our court area for the past 2 years. Fourteen members in all, spread out over 11 singles and 3 doubles matches and as it turned out, it was the closest result between the 2 clubs ever - and we have been running this competition since 2005.

Tom MacEachern and Ryan Guthrie

The DAC got on the board early with Tom MacEachern. His opponent was a young man / lad / boy / junior / whippersnapper who we found out was 18 but seriously I thought was barely out of primary school. I guess when you get to my age, anybody under the age of 25 suddenly appears to me as a wee child that hasn’t yet graduated to the front passenger seat of their parent's car. Ryan Guthrie had a smooth technique, and was pretty darn quick. Not exactly carrying a lot of extra meat on him, I am sure that without his squash shoes on, he may have floated to the ceiling. Tom hung tough though, and was the steadier of the two, executed some rather impressive pick-ups of his own and out-lasted Ryan for a 3-0 win.

Colin Bayer, all the while, was battling it out against Ron Funkenhuaser two courts down and struggled. Appearing to be a little out of sync, Colin was a mixed bag of some accomplished squash and some… let’s say “questionable” decisions. With up and down form - sometimes in the same rally - it of course makes it awkward to gain any sort of momentum. The match went to 5, Ron proved to be the more dependable of the pair on the day and took the win to kick off Windsor’s campaign.

And so the trend for the singles matches was set. Keeping to the script, neither club could assert themselves with any authority. We would win a couple, Windsor would win a couple.

Jeff Frost and Trevor Charles

Only 2 other matches went to 5. Jeff Frost had a great start to his contest taking the first 2 games against Trevor Charles, an opponent who couldn’t decide whether he was right handed or left handed. Then the wheels fell off a little. Jeff, in his ultimate wisdom, somehow managed to smack himself in the funny bone of his left arm with his own racquet which threw him completely sideways. Maybe the numbness reached the co-ordination nodes of his brain, and the 4th game was over before he could sneeze, missing a handful of serves and looking totally dazed. Fortunately, sanity (and feeling) returned for the 5th and Jeff pulled out the 11-8 win, now able to actually laugh at his mishap.

Jay Bonahoom had the unenviable task of playing against the Windsor pro Dave Morrish. Like (just about) all pros, Dave has pretty acceptable racquet skills. If the ball is loose, if you give him time, and even if you don’t, Dave has the ability (go figure) to punish you. He has a great touch, can be awfully deceptive, knows what shot you are hitting even before you step on court for the warm-up, and has years of experience to boot. None of that perturbed Jay it seems. He did a phenomenal job. The one thing that Jay did have on Dave was movement and Jay ran his behind off, forced Dave short often, and took advantage well of open court opportunities. Stretching the veteran pro to 5 games, I did still think - even at 8-all - that Dave was in the driver’s seat based mainly on that experience. And it was the case. Some subtle holds, clever flicks, and the match was suddenly over. But Jay should be very happy with his performance.

From the 11 singles matches we had won 5 of them. It would come down to the doubles.

The first doubles match of the day featured our own veteran (non-pro) John-please-don’t-make-me-hit-a-backhand-Dunwoody and one of our newest additions to the club Max Franklin, a top flight club extraordinaire. They had a tough task against hard hitting Paul Gebrael and Dave Morrish, an imposing combination of brute force and deft touch. Dave is also a lefty, so they were dealing with 2 forehands here. John and Max had their chances. They had glory in the palm of their hands before they fumbled it and let it slip away. One sniff of that prestige was all it took for them to choke on the fumes. The opportunity came at 2-1 up and 14-all in the 4th… a solitary match-ball that was there for the taking but turned out never to be. The 5th game was close but they couldn’t recover as they went own 15-11. Oh well, nothing a beer or two couldn’t solve!

Ian "'Murica!" Edwards and Rich Routley

2 matches left - we had to win them both. First up was Ian Edwards and Bruce Shaw against Carlyle D’Souza and Trevor Charles. And this match could not have been closer. It was another tug-o-war type contest, game for us, game for them, neither team asserting themselves as dominate. Even as the 5th game stretched into the last few rallies, and Windsor held 3 match-balls at 14-12 (and in turn, Cross Border Challenge Title ball), Ian and Bruce somehow managed to frame a winner, squeak out the next point as well to set up the sudden death exchange… It was a short rally. Not an overly pretty rally. An “Oh!-I-hope-I-don’t-hit-the-tin” rally, when suddenly Carlyle hit the tin. And with that we avoided disaster.

Now it was up to Tom MacEachern and the human Nacho, David de la Torre. In their way was Ron Funkenhauser and Arnie Funkenhauser. Winner takes all. It was all on the line. And our boys stepped up big time. Both Tom and Dave have improved their doubles game considerably over the past 12 months and they made their point. Solid first game, was followed by a 15-14 win in the second - the only time in the match where they looked pressured. The third was a stream-rolling performance, it didn’t take long. A statement 3-0 win to finish the day and the DAC survived the closest Cross Border in the 13 year history.

Score? DAC - 7 matches, 27 games won. Windsor - 7 matches, 25 games won. We scraped in by 2 solitary games. Of course, many of our players claimed to be the one who pushed us over the top… Colin Bayer, Jay Bonahoom, even John Dunwoody was trying to make his case. But, as we all know, it was a team effort - every player contributed no matter how their score line ended up. I would like to thank all of our members who made the grandiose effort to play, and for the Windsor team and their pro Dave Morrish for their always extremely welcoming hospitality. We hope to get together again in April for the next episode… if our schedules can synchronize at all! For the record, this was the 21^st running of the event. Overall, Windsor hold an 11 to 10 lead.

Go DAC Team!

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

2018 Summer Leagues Breakdown

I hope you get one good last, long look of the sun. Because before you know it, it will migrate itself south for the winter to torment the lower hemisphere leaving us with only dissolving memories of what it was like. Detroit winters aren’t exactly renowned for its glorious unclouded days so justifiably a good percentage of squash players take advantage of the warmer months and get their fill of fresh air.

This summer on our courts was a mixed bag of results in regards to usage. Overall this year, it’s no secret that we haven’t been able to keep up the trend of the past 13 years, the unfortunate leaving of our assistant pro has had the expected consequence in that category. However, the summer leagues were - comparatively speaking - well attended and as I always say, for the players that kept up their squash over this time period, they have a reasonably large head-start on their counterparts for the start of the 2018-2019 season.

The Doubles League was an 11 week season (or a 10 week season for the Monday group because of the Memorial Day holiday). We one-upped ourselves from the last 2 summers on registrations this time with 48, spread over 4 categories. Like every summer, the allure of good weather, BBQ’s, playing golf, sailing, talking about golf, porch sitting, daydreaming about golf, pool floating, watching golf, and couch vegetating can take over and on occasion it was difficult to find 4 players to even turn up. Keeping that in mind, at times it was frustrating, but overall it was acceptable: 

• 64 total matches (across all levels) were arranged. 6 of them were not played due to not being able to find enough subs. The good news is that we did not have any no-call-no-shows.
• For the Monday A league, subs were only required 25% of the time – actually a decent stat! 1 match wasn’t played. 8 matches did not require any subs at all – also an excellent number! Only 2 subs were required in the final 3 weeks.
• Tuesday B were not as dedicated. Only 1 match wasn’t played, but we needed to find subs 37% of the time. Every single match – except 1 – needed at least 1 sub. Matches were somewhat competitive as only 7 of the 21 matches ended up 3-0. Bruce Shaw ended up with the most points in this group, but since he played 13 matches, it would have been difficult not to!
• The Wednesday Open group struggled a little. For some reason, the hardest level to manage is this one, the top players seem to want to enjoy their summer more than the rest of us. 3 of 11 matches did not get played, subs were needed 38% of the time, and every single match required at least one sub. In fact 8 of the 11 matches needed at least 2. Can’t argue with the competitiveness though – none of the matches that were played were 3-0.
• The easiest group to supervise were the Wednesday C league. 1 match wasn’t played, and only 6 subs were needed for the whole season (13%)! Six of the matches didn’t need any sub at all, and just 3 results ended up as 3-0.

The singles league stretched out all the way through to Labor Day. Since all matches are self-schedule and everybody can play as much as they please, whenever they please, why not keep the thing running all summer long? Reward the dedicated I say! I really like this format and it encouraged many groups of members to consistently arrange matches on a weekly basis. Hence, we blew last year’s match record out of the water: 

• 99 players were registered this year. I was a little disappointed with that as I was hoping to get at least 100 if not 110. Still, 9 teams of 10 and 1 team of 9 is pretty darn good for the summer.
• We had an amazing 636 total matches completed. That’s up from last year’s 502 matches – or a 26% increase. We averaged just under 40 matches a week.
• Team 8 played 224 matches, or, 35% or the overall total. Team 8 also played the most last year.
• Team 8 broke all kinds of records. Amongst them, they are the first team ever in the summer league to complete a full round (45 matches) and receive the 10 point bonus. They completed 35 matches in round 2.
• Paul Gormley and Matt Turnbull (Team 8) played each other 26 times. Matt is a glutton for punishment on this one – he only won 4 of those matches. 
• Paul Gormley scored 322 individual points overall. He played 79 matches. Next best was Matt Turnbull with 235 and Jon Diewald right on his tale with 231.
• 8 players on Team 8 scored over 100 points.
• Team 3 only played 6 matches. Ugh.
• 16 players did not play any matches. Also a big “Ugh…!” This one hurts the most.

Half of Team 8! Jon Diewald, Alex Nitsche, Paul Gormley, Sam Fogleman, Matt Turnbull

Congratulations to all the winners – and a big special mention (again) to Team 8 for their incredible performance. The results will be posted outside court 8 for a couple of weeks, so be sure to check out the numbers.