LEAGUES ALL SUMMER LONG

 2021 Summer League Breakdown

I guess the one thing that will stand out in my mind this summer above all else was catching a fleeting glimpse of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Skateboarding action. Not often am I left speechless, but for a sport that was favored to be worthy of Olympic status more than squash, I honestly couldn’t find the words to express my horror and unadulterated disgust at what I was witnessing. The IOC should be ashamed of itself. It literally puts a knot in my stomach whenever I think of it, and we repeat to ourselves the same question any human with any smidge of common sense does: why is squash not Olympic? The never-answerable debate rages on…

Apart from that, this summer has been pretty darn good.

I feel it was a little hodgepodge of results for the 2021 summer singles and doubles leagues. I am not sure whether to be astonished or not that court numbers during this season eclipsed the (pre-covid) 2019 numbers. By a significant margin as well. The indoor mask mandate was lifted at the start of May, which of course was a major factor bringing members back into the fold. I guess many were simply itching to get back on court regardless of the outside temperatures. As far as the statistics for the leagues go, some areas struggled, some were outstanding. Overall though, I was rather content with the activity level.

The doubles league runs for 10 weeks. We were down slightly on registrations with only 41, compared to the 47 we had in 2019. We still managed to arrange 4 divisions but had to cut down a couple of time slots so we ended up with 6 scheduled matches a week. Finding subs proved to be harder than usual, many players that registered also found it difficult to commit at all. I have to admit it was at times frustrating to constantly have to cattle prod for help. That being said, we managed okay.

•          There were 60 matches scheduled overall. Only 4 matches were not completed due to not being able to find any subs. That’s 93%, which actually is pretty good for the summer.
•          The Monday A League played all of their 20 matches. Only 3 of the matches didn’t require any subs at all. Overall, subs were needed just under 29% of the time. Not great, but we didn’t have too much trouble finding the subs when they were asked. Shail Arora played 12 of the 20 matches, and therefore had the most points. He also had the best average which is impressive.
•          Tuesday B league played 18 of their 20 matches. Again, 3 matches didn’t need any subs, and overall subs were needed 39% of the time which is quite high. (Over the last 3 weeks, it was 58%.) It was difficult finding subs at this level which was a little unusual. Drew Creamer played 11 of the 18 matches and had the most points. Colin Casey and Jordan Dean played as a team and had the best average – in fact they didn’t drop a game in their 5 matches.
•          Wednesday C League was the easiest to manage. All 10 matches were played, 6 of them were 3-2, and only 3 of them ended up with a 3-0 score so it was the most competitive as well. Only 1 match didn’t need any subs, 11 subs were needed overall (or 27.5%), and finding them was a breeze. Shout out to Earle Spohn who broke his Achilles tendon halfway through the season, we hope his recovery is going well and we’ll see him back on court in 2022! Renée Fershée ended up with the most points in this groups – she did play 7 of the 10 matches. Only 3 players reached the minimum 5 match requirement to qualify for the best average – Kurt Hielscher squeaked a win there. In fact, this group was so keen to play, they asked for an extra 8 weeks of scheduled play… it didn’t count towards the league stats, but can’t knock the dedication!
•          The Friday Open League was the least committed. Possibly because it was on a Friday afternoon (!?) but in my defense, the players themselves requested that day. Eight of the 10 matches were completed, finding subs was an arduous task. Subs were needed 47.5% of the time… ouch. (that jumped to 62.5% in the last 4 weeks). David de la Torre played 7 of the 8 matches, and consequently had the most points. Only 2 players qualified for best percentage, Dave also took the honors in that… by .09 points!

The Singles league ran for 16 weeks and, remarkably, we had 100 players – 1 more than the Boasters League that ran from February through March earlier this year. Expectations were high that we were going to eclipse match numbers set in 2018… but as you will see, it was close but no cigar… 

• We had 578 matches reported. That’s 58 matches short of the record. I was a little disappointed in that to be honest. The first 8 weeks of the season we averaged 44.5 matches / week – on course for over 700 matches. The last 8 weeks, the average dropped to 27.5 matches a week.
• Legs Miserable played the most matches with 158 – or 27% of the total. They also completed an entire box (i.e. – each player on the team played each other at least once) and earned the 10 match point bonus. They were also the only team to play at least 1 match every week. Great effort!
• Hats off to Ted Mabley. He entered the league at the request of the Legs Miserable team when one of their players had to drop out due to injury. Ted only had 3 weeks to play all of his teammates.
• On the other end of the spectrum, Agony of Da Feet only played 6 matches… what the…?? They did not play any matches after the 4^th week.
• The Rally Criers played 110 matches. It was an admirable achievement, and at one point were leading the league in matches played after 10 rounds. However, they let themselves down after that because they only played 20 matches in the final 6 weeks.·         Most matches were played in week 5 with 64.
• Most matches were played in week 5 with 64.
• Least matches were played in week 10 with 14.
• The disappointing stat overall was the number of players who failed to play even one match: 18. Way, way too high – it’s also a summer league record.
• Matt Paradiso (Court in the Act) picked up the most points overall with 314. Of course, that was helped almost entirely by playing Ian Edwards 46 times. He won 44 of those matches. Those matches accounted for 63.5 % of their team’s total. Matt basically owns Ian now, so if any of you wish to speak to Ian, you must ask Matt for permission first.
• 12 players scored at least 100 points. Not bad!
• There were only 2 weeks where all 10 teams played at least 1 match.

Signs are pointing in a positive direction for the upcoming season. We feel excitement for a ‘normal’ season has been bubbling on the surface for a while now and hopefully we can get through it without any major interruptions. Most important to keep in mind however: there are several you that haven’t played much (if any) squash since the lockdown started in March 2020. Jumping straight onto a squash court and running around like you did 18 months ago may be an awful shock to your system. We do want to avoid any injuries, so please ease yourself back into it. Make sure you get some practice in before hopping into your first competitive match. Stretch, warm-up… warm-down afterwards… let’s be smart about the approach!