DAC Squash Classic Feb 10-13, 2022
Two years removed. Covid killed just about all squash tournaments in 2021, and as we were preparing to run this year, we were somewhat worried that Covid would claim us a second time as the Omicron variant was spreading and Ontario was once again in lockdown. Fortunately, the world was starting to open up as the start day approached and although we did not reach our usual maximum number of participants, I’ll take the 137 players we did get any day of the week.
The worry was that the Canadians were not going to be able to cross the border at all, but with the contingent from London, Toronto, Sarnia, Chatham, and Windsor, we still managed 22 overall as opposed to the usual 40 or so. I was very pleased they made the effort and it was wonderful to see their familiar faces back at the DAC. That’s not to downplay the non-member entrants from the US either which included Chicago and Toledo, Lansing, Ann Arbor, and our friends from the BAC, Life Time Fitness in Troy - without each and every one, the tournament would simply not be the same.
The event felt very much that we had returned to ‘normal’… whatever ‘normal’ is these days I guess! Missing the one year actually felt like we had missed 10, so much has changed. Except the DAC Classic. I try to stick to the formula that seems to work and I hope that all the competitors felt very welcome and at home during the 4 days.
The squash…
In the lower categories, DAC members make up the bulk of the players. So, our odds of winning those categories is significantly higher. In the 2.5, all but 2 players were from inside our walls. AJ Peleman led the way with an almost perfect record to claim the title. His one ‘blemish’ was in the semi-final where he dropped a game to Matt Thatcher. AJ’s opponent in the final was a little surprising to me - Joe Schmidt. Joe had a terrific upset win in his second match taking out AJ’s biggest threat in Paul Gormley in 5 games. Joe’s run continued through the semis with a 3-1 win over Niko Ahee. AJ beat Joe 3-0 in the final, but to place a little perspective into Joe’s effort, Paul Gormley beat AJ last week in the boasters league. Naturally, AJ refused to hand over to Paul his winning Classic trophy… So standard-wise, based on that, one could claim they all are rather even!
Matt Wilson can claim the “Iron-Man” of the weekend. Entering 2 categories, he ended up with 8 matches. In the 3.0 a clean sweep. All four matches were a 3-0, including the final against Andrew Peleman. Matt is another one of our young members that has improved quickly over the past season. Mainly through athleticism and essentially being on court and playing countless matches, he does have an awkward style but so far it has been effective. It will be interesting to see how far he will be able to take this way of plying into the higher levels. We had 26 matches (including consolation) in the 3.0 draw, strangely, only one of them went to 5 games.
In the 3.5, Matt almost did the double-double. All but one of his matches were 3-0. His first round was the anomaly, he beat Tom Fabbri 3-1, and then matter-of-factly swatted away the next 2 opponents 3-0 to once again reach the final. It is unusual for anyone to reach the final of the main draw in 2 categories. If a player reaches the final in the 3.5, what is he doing in the 3.0? This is not Matt’s fault - if anyone is to blame, it’s me. Typically, the DAC Classic would be a stronger field than our club championships based on the non-members that enter. But this year, we just didn’t get as many of them. In fact, all players in the 3.5 category were DAC, and only 4 players in the 3.0 were not. Matt’s 3.5 opponent in the final was a new kid on the block, in fact had just been declared a DAC member 2 weeks before the tournament started - Sean Abelarde. His timing was perfect. I had just received a cancellation in the draw and Sean’s email reached my desktop not 10 minutes later asking if there was room in the same category. Sure enough, I slotted him in, and sure enough, Sean’s first DAC squash experience was a golden run to the title! He stopped Matt’s 7 match win streak with a 3-0 victory.
Now it starts to get tough for our lads. The 4.0 draw had some new players to the Classic, many of them were worthy to take the winner’s trophy. An extremely competitive field, only 3 of our members reached the quarter finals, and only one of them survived for one more match. Dark horse of the tournament was a veteran to the game - Dominic Carroll from Life Time fitness, who actually learnt his squash way back in the day in Zimbabwe / South Africa. Dominic did it the hard way and maybe - just maybe - he has recovered by now. A quarter final win over our good friend and supporter Jay Nash from London, he then had to turn back the years to tackle a young set of legs from the Racquet Up Detroit crew - Antwan Ramsey. Using all the experience he could muster, somehow Dominic held off the whippersnapper for an 11-9 in the 5th victory. And just a few hours later, he had to play the final. If it was me, just thinking about backing up a match like that on the same day is enough to give me an aneurysm, make me curl up in the fetal position and wish myself off to my happy place… But for Dominic… Bring. It. On. Jeff Wong (Sarnia) was his opponent, and luckily for Dominic, Jeff hardly had a breezy walk through for his semi either. Jeff was taken to the brink by our Tom Howe before squeezing the 3-2 win. Somehow, some way, Dominic pushed Jeff to the limit - although most likely it wasn’t how he would have wanted it on paper - to another 5-set match. But in the end, finally, it caught up with him. Jeff breathed a sigh of relief with his 3-2 win. I bet the beer never tasted so good to both players!
Matt Paradiso continues to impress. In 2020, he won the 3.5 category. Now he was competing for the 4.5. He had a pretty straightforward run to the final, not dropping a game. His opponent in the final was another youthful spring chicken from Chatham – Gabe Van Moorsel. Tall with reach. And doesn’t know what tired means. And too young to drink - which for the DAC Classic can be a monumental advantage! Gabe’s run to the final was not as elementary. JC Tibbitts tested the lad in the quarter finals and took him to a deciding set but couldn’t finish the job. And Gabe had all he could handle against Matt. It was anyone’s match for the taking. Especially when it gets to 9-9 in the 5th. Who can hold their nerve more? Who can frame that lucky winner? Anything can happen. Unfortunately for Matt, luck was not on his side this time around. Gabe was just a couple of rallies too good in the end, negligible really, but enough to take the 11-9 in the 5th win!
The DAC had little representation in the 5.0. All quarter finalists were non-members, and 3 of the 4 semifinalists were from the BAC. Competitive matches throughout however, I can always rely on Brad Steel (BAC) to completely mess up the scheduling and push the matches way back since he insists on playing 5-set matches every time. Okay, okay, his first match was 3-1, but it still went past the allotted time! His semi was against Avinash Gali (Life Time). Similar playing styles, long rallies to length with the occasional boast, less- occasional drop, and the even less occasional winner. Of course, the 5 set match seemed to take all of Sunday morning, one would think they were playing a best of 9 games, not 5, but Avinash ended the marathon 3-2. His finalist was Jack Parks (BAC). Jack had an even tougher morning since not only did he have to play his semi (he won that 3-1 against his club compatriot Zach Edinburgh) he also had to play his Doubles A final - which will be mentioned shortly. The doubles seemed to take a lot of the skip out of his step, and he reluctantly made his way to the singles court. He still put up a decent resistance, but he couldn’t stop the Avinash freight train from winning 3-0. Avinash has been supporting the DAC Classic since 2015 where he won the 4.0 division. Dare he try for the Open in 2023?
In the Open, a smaller draw than previous years, but a strong level. Our 2019 club champion - Stefan Houbtchev - had his work cut out for him to win the category with David Mill (Windsor) in the draw. Stefan and David grew up together in Windsor and have been playing against each other not only through those junior years bit also at college in London Ontario. David has also won the u/23 Canadian championships a few years back, so he knows how hit a ball - hard. Both reached the final without drama. In the first game, it was Stefan who was the steadier of the two, David was uncharacteristically clipping the tin on a regular basis and it cost him. But he found a better line and pace in the second and forced his way back in the match. The next three games had the pace and level that we were expecting from the two, and David was the one who managed to keep his nose in front for the most part. It was a 3-1 win. We hope to be seeing more of David in the near future as he has applied to join the DAC!
On to the doubles. In the C, we had a full 16 team draw. Once again, the most shocking standout here was the lack of 5-set matches - there weren’t any. In fact, there were only three 3-1 results - out of the 15. I’m not sure I can remember ever seeing such one-sided looking results all the way through a draw - not to say that the matches were not competitive, they were just sweeps. Dominated again by our members, three of the four semifinalists were DAC. Rich Stimson and John Roarty were always going to be competing for the trophy and no exception here. They reached the final taking out the Canadian pair of Jess Wilken and Joe Longo to meet up against Jeff Rogers and Brian Ellison. On paper, this should have been down to the wire. Anything but a 3-0, right? Don’t tell Rich and John. It’s not the victory itself that was an upset, it was the 3-0 score line.
Closer matches through the B draw. Local favorites JC Tibbitts and Jason Currie were my pick to reach the final and they proved me right. They had a ding-dong semi against fellow members David de la Torre and Scott Beals - who by the way, made up a t-shirt with the name “de-la-Beals!” - and took a gritty 3-1 win. For the final they had the arduous task of playing Rory Bradd (Sarnia) and Gabe Van Moorsel (Chatham). It was a great match, JC and Jason doing all they could to keep up and for the most part they did exactly that. Overall though, the constant pressure ended up being a little too much to handle and the Canadian pair took a spirited final 3-1.
Doubles A. One of the most exciting draws we’ve seen for a while. Jed Elley and Ryan Covell won this category in 2020 but were agonizingly close to being eliminated in their first match this time around. The team of Max Franklin and Jess Berline (BAC) gave them everything they could handle and then some. At 2-2 and 10-14 down in the 5th it looked all but over. Miraculously, they found a way and came back to snatch victory 15-14! It was a short-lived joy though, they were then beaten soundly 3-0 in the semis by Stefan Houbtchev and David Mill. Peter Logan came all the way from Montana to team up with legend John Seidel (Toledo). The veteran team of the draw, but hardly push-overs. A rusty start to overcome the power of the father-son combination of Kevin and Carter Furmanek in 5 in round 1, they almost upset the second seeded team of Robin Basil and Zach Archer (Chicago) in round 2 to go down 15-12 in the 5th. It’s a thing of beauty to see experienced doubles players execute the angles so effortlessly on the doubles court. We hope to see John again on our courts, he is moving to Colorado later this year. Mark Eugeni (Windsor) is another staple feature of our tournament. He has won our singles and doubles titles multiple times over the years; he has enough steins to open his own coffee shop. His usual partner in crime is Jon Uffelman (BAC) but Jon is recovering from injury, so Mark teamed up with Jack Parks (BAC). Jack is not known for his doubles prowess, but he should be now. Impressive. He’s fast, he hit some wicked backhand angles to boot. They beat the Basil / Archer team 3-1 in the semis, to reach the final. However, it was always going to be difficult against the Mill / Houbtchev combination. Relentless power hitting, David’s balls sound different coming off the front wall. So exhausting to defend against, Stefan and David took the riveting final 3-1.
We look forward to 2023. I am expecting to be back to full capacity - barring any world-wide disasters! - so mark this same February weekend on your calendar. Thank you all around to all the sponsors, all the DAC staff and managers: Rob Barr, Nick Peet, Ryan and Val and all their locker room staff. Shout out to Josh Slominski and Morgan for their help with registration. And to Stu Hadden, our mercurial assistant squash pro.
