By S. Quinn DeJoy and J. Murrer

Mar. 9, 2016:  In its fourth year playing squash as a varsity sport, the Bronxville squash team brought home the first-place trophy at the Fairwest Championships, which were held at Chelsea Piers in Stamford, Connecticut, on February 27 and 28. The Bronxville A team included top-seeded player and co-captain Charlie Preusse, co-captain Will Cioffi, Sam Abukhadra, Hadley Barr, Sasha Capasso, Liv Cappello, Alex Swenson, and McKenna Stoltz.

"The Fairwest Squash Tournament was a great way to end our successful varsity season," said Cioffi. "Our entire team played extremely well; in fact, several players never lost a match."

Bronxville is a member of the Fairwest Public School Squash Association (FWPSSA), founded in 2008 to enable public school students in Westchester and Fairfield Counties to play squash in a competitive interscholastic environment. Other participants in the championship included teams from New Canaan, Harrison, White Plains, Westport, and Fairfield.

Squash is a very popular sport among middle school students. Bronxville middle school teams won both Division I and II titles at the Fairwest Middle School Championship. Division I was won by the Bronxville A Team (Harry Charlton, Conner Stoltz, Sam Charlton, Justin Barr, Molly Stoltz, and Pippa Fraser), while the Division II was won by a combination of B and C team players (Peter Vorbach, Daanyal Agboatwalla, James Apostolatos, Lily Jebejian, and Peter Ackerman).

Amy Charlton, middle school chair for the FWPSSA, who ran the middle school program, attributes the team's success to the instructional nature of the program, which allows for players of all levels--beginner to nationally ranked--to participate and improve. She also noted that parents give their time and resources to make the program successful.

The overall success of both the varsity and middle school teams would not have been possible without the dedication of varsity squash coaches Gillian Garzia from The Bronxville School and Hamza Bukhari of Westchester Squash and middle school coaches Ajaz Azmat and Aurangzeb Mehmund (Khan), both of the Bronxville Field Club.

Kim Morse started the squash program at The Bronxville School in the 2009-10 year as a combined middle school and high school team open to sixth- to twelfth-graders. The squash program has seen significant growth since that time and now includes almost 50 students from The Bronxville School.

Other Bronco News: Swimming and Indoor Track at States

The New Rochelle-Bronxville boys' swim team sent five swimmers to the New York State Championships last week. The championships were held at Erie Community College in Buffalo on March 4 and 5. Bronxville High School students Andrew Babyak, Aidan Flannery, and Timothy Cushman and New Rochelle High School students John Freeman and Michael Lawson competed in multiple events.

Sophomore Andrew Babyak swam in two individual events, qualifying for finals and finishing seventh in the 500yd freestyle and thirteenth in the 200yd individual medley. Freshman Timothy Cushman swam in one individual event, qualifying for finals in the 100yd backstroke with a seventeenth-place finish. Junior John Freeman swam in the 100yd and 200yd freestyle preliminary events.

The team sent two relay teams to states. The 200yd freestyle relay (Babyak, Cushman, Freeman, and sophomore Michael Lawson) qualified for finals and came in sixteenth overall, and the 400yd freestyle relay (Babyak, junior Aidan Flannery, Freeman, and Lawson) qualified for finals and came in fourteenth.

Also competing in state competition was junior Kaitlin Ryan. Ryan qualified for the indoor track and field championships in 1000m by winning the Section 1 title in that event. At the state championships, which were held at Cornell University on March 5, Ryan placed third in 2:53.95, just 0.03 of a second behind Alexandra Harris from North Rockland High School. Sammy Watson from Rush-Henrietta, who set a new state record in the 1000m in February, won the race in 2:51.33. Mary Cain holds the New York State Open record (2:35.80), which was set in 2014.

Go Broncos.

Pictured here (rotating):  (L to R) Swimmers Michael Lawson, John Freeman, Aidan Flannery, Timothy Cushman, and Andrew Babyak (photo by T. Cushman); the Bronxville Varsity A squash team after winning the Fairwest Cup (photo courtesy G. Garzia).