Rye High School’s boys varsity squash team recently returned from the world’s largest squash tournament with a fourth-place finish in the high-school-only competition’s fourth division.
The 2024 U.S. High School Championships, Feb. 23-25 in Philadelphia, attracted 203 teams separated into seven divisions, each with a championship title for both a boys and a girls team.
Led by freshman Charlie Rodilosso in the No. 1 position, junior and co-captain Andrew Chun in No. 2 and senior co-captain Nicolas Echlov in No. 3, Rye defeated the Boston-based SquashBusters in the first round of this year’s nationals by a score of 5-2. The Garnets then beat the fourth division’s No. 1 seed, Scarsdale, by a score of 4-3 in what was perhaps the team’s best overall performance of the 2023-24 season.
In the semifinals, Rye battled hard but fell 5-2 to their Connecticut neighbor, Greenwich High School. They then lost the consolation match for third place to Connecticut’s Salisbury School by a score of 4-3.
The Greenwich High boys went on to win the division by defeating the Kingswood-Oxford School 4-3 in an all-Connecticut final.
“I’m so proud of this team and how we have created such a family,” Echlov said of his Rye High School teammates afterward. “Nationals was an incredible experience, and it really exemplified how we improved over the course of the season.”
Other members of the team include seniors Niklas Hofmann, co-captain William Latara, Andrew Latara and Shaddhi Ibrahim; junior Joey Cavatoni; sophomore Philip Nemeth; and eighth-grader Rocco DeFife.
“This team played tremendous squash throughout the course of the weekend and demonstrated grit, tenacity, and camaraderie,” said Coach Quan Huynh, who was assisted by Russell Echlov, a team parent and former Dartmouth College squash player, during the tournament and throughout the season.