Love of Squash Continues at College

The Friday following Thanksgiving, past and current members of the Rye girls’ squash team held a reunion they hope to make an annual affair. A day of squash was followed by dinner and lots of good cheer for both players and parents at the home of past coach Susan Whelan, mother of senior Caroline Whelan.

The Friday following Thanksgiving, past and current members of the Rye girls’ squash team held a reunion they hope to make an annual affair. A day of squash was followed by dinner and lots of good cheer for both players and parents at the home of past coach Susan Whelan, mother of senior Caroline Whelan.

Kick-started as a club four years ago, the team became an official varsity program after two years. The reasons were clear: a large number of students played at the high school level, the teams had a full schedule of matches against public and private schools, and Rye even sent two different teams to the U.S. Squash High School Nationals at Yale University and Trinity College. The Garnets performed well at Nationals, and in their third year of participation one of the teams moved up a division.

One measure of the program’s remarkable success is the number of graduates who currently play for their college. Courtney Burke (’09) and Rosario Gallagher (’11) play for Colgate University; Casey Maguire (’09) is on the Johns Hopkins team; Kate Murtagh (’09) competes for the University of Virginia; and Katie Bouton (’11) plays for New York University.  

Bouton had her first college match for NYU a few weeks ago against the University of Toronto, and was a bit nervous as a freshman playing in the No. 3 position – a great achievement in and of itself. Although NYU lost, Bouton won her match in five games, taking the last game 17-15 (matches are scored to 11, but a player has to win by two points). She was elated.

Crediting her continued participation in the sport to the great experience she had at Rye, Bouton noted, “We had lots of fun and often played opponents who were more experienced because we were such a young team. We learned to just keep trying and play our game.”  
Other past Rye players also continue to play in college, but at schools that either have one of the top programs in the U.S., or ones that don’t yet have a varsity women’s team.

Angie Cho (’10) attends Dartmouth College and Laura Nicholas (’10) is at Trinity College, two top squash schools. This doesn’t deter Cho or Nicholas from playing, as both girls compete in intramural student matches.   

There is no women’s team at the University of Maryland, so Nancy Kelleher (’11) practices on the courts there and plays pick-up games. She hopes to join the Maryland men’s team in January. Stephanie McGowan (’09), Bernadette Beary (’10), Katie Geoghegan (’11), Jessica Horvath (’11), and Holly Meister (’11) say that although their schools don’t teams, they still play and hope the sport will continue to expand at the high school and college levels.   

Rye head coach Tony Campbell noted that squash is a “life sport”, and Beary added that she plays to get a good workout at school and to meet new people.

At the reunion, current Rye seniors Kathryn Lavelle, GG Fitzgerald, Annie Van Wagenen, and Caroline Whelan, as well as team members Emma Jennings, Emily Dowling, and Liza Morell, watched the older girls closely and listened to them speak about their college experiences.

For now, they’ll focus on the current season; but college and the opportunity to play at that level is not too far away to think about.