The College Squash Association (CSA), the governing body for varsity college squash competition, is pleased to announce it has hired an Executive Director and League Commissioner. After a lengthy and robust search process, the CSA has reached an agreement with David L. Poolman to take office on August 20, 2018.

Mr. Poolman comes to the CSA from Columbia University where he served as an Associate Athletics Director, overseeing ten varsity sports, including Men’s and Women’s Squash. He also served as the liaison to the Ivy League Squash Coaches Group. Mr. Poolman’s passion for the game stems from his days as a student-athlete at Haverford College where he played varsity squash in addition to varsity soccer.  Before holding various positions in the Columbia Athletics Department, Mr. Poolman worked in the Athletics Department at the United States Merchant Marine Academy and as a consultant at Public Financial Management, Inc.

Mr. Poolman will be the CSA’s first hire under its reconfigured organization, with newly adopted governance and an independent Board of Directors. “We couldn’t be more positive about bringing David on,” says Board Chair, Eric Fast. “He brings a cross section of experience working with different coaches, sports, the NCAA, and collegiate Athletics Directors. He has a track record of managing competing interests and has expressed great enthusiasm for the CSA and the potential growth of college squash.”

Mr. Poolman’s hire concludes a three-month search chaired by CSA board member, Jeanne Blasberg. In addition to Blasberg, the search committee consisted of Peter Lasusa, former US Squash Chair, Gail Ramsay, Head Coach of Women’s Squash at Princeton University, and Jacques Swanepoel, Head Coach of Men’s and Women’s Squash at Columbia University. The committee screened and interviewed dozens of candidates and listened to the input of various members of the community.

Mr. Poolman looks forward to getting to know all the constituents of the CSA in advance of the 2018-2019 squash season and to being part of the team that will take the organization to the next level.  He will office in New York City at US Squash headquarters.

The College Squash Association (CSA) has awarded Dickinson College with the 2018 Women’s Most Improved Team Award. The award recognizes a team that has improved in the rankings while surpassing other strong opposing teams. The honor was first given in 2010, and is voted on by all varsity women’s teams.

Dickinson compiled a 10-9 season record, including two 5-4 wins against Centennial Conference rivals Franklin & Marshall. The team also made a run to the final of the Walker Cup division at the Women’s National Team Championships.

Dickinson improved five ranking positions from last season, moving from No. 23 in 2016-2017 to a final ranking this season of No. 18. It marked the highest season-end ranking position ever achieved by Dickinson, which only began a varsity squash program in 2014.

This is the first time Dickinson has won the Most Improved Team Award.

“The Dickinson women’s squash team is honored to be named the most improved team of the season,” stated Dickinson Head Coach Chris Sachvie, “We had some breakthrough wins and a wonderful showing at the team championships which is a testament to the hard work and growth of our players over the last year. We look forward to another big season in 2018-2019!”

The College Squash Association (CSA) has awarded Brown University with the 2018 Barnaby Award. First presented in 1983, the Barnaby Award recognizes the most improved team in men’s college squash. This is the first time Brown has won the honor, which is voted on by all varsity teams.

The award is named for Jack Barnaby, who coached the Harvard men for decades and later coached the Harvard women. Harvard struggled during the first few years of Barnaby’s tenure, but the Crimson ultimately became a national powerhouse under his leadership, winning national title after national title. By the time he retired from coaching the men’s team in 1976, Barnaby had compiled a 355-95 lifetime record. His team capped his final season with a national title, going undefeated.

Brown made an impressive jump of seven ranking positions this season, finishing at No.12 after concluding the 2016-2017 season at No.19. At the 2018 Men’s Nationals, the Brown men upset Drexel 5-4 in the opening round to ensure a final ranking in the top 12 for the first time since 2011.

“It is very pleasing to have the team be rewarded for their hard work this season by winning the Barnaby Award” states Stuart le Gassick, Brown Head Coach, “This is the first time Brown has won this award and this year’s team are very happy to be the first recipients! We won some close matches this season—but we believe that you make your own luck and we certainly enjoyed the numerous tight matches that we had throughout the season.”

The Barnaby Award caps a banner year for the program; Brown also was awarded the 2018 Sloane Award for team sportsmanship earlier this spring.

The College Squash Association (CSA) has released the Women’s Scholar Athlete and Academic Recognition Awardees for the 2017-2018 season.

The Scholar Athlete Award (varsity team players) and Academic Recognition Award (club team players) is granted to juniors or seniors who have played on the team throughout their college career, participated in the majority of the team’s matches in the top-10 of the lineup during the season, and achieved a high academic standing at their institution. For full criteria, please see here.

CSA Scholar Athletes represent the values of the association and student athletics—players achieving a high level of play on court while excelling in the classroom. The association congratulates all of this year’s awardees.

2017-2018 Women’s CSA Scholar Athlete Award Recipients:

Apoorva Addepalli (Drexel University)
Rachael Ang (Amherst College)
Lauren Banner (Tufts University)
Quincy Beck (Brown University)
Sarah Bell (Stanford University)
Natasha Belsky (Bowdoin College)
Lily Bogle (Middlebury College)
Lucy Bostwick (Middlebury College)
Molly Brooks (Bates College)
Rebecca Brownell (Dartmouth College)
Samantha Chai (Princeton University)
Emily Chang (Mount Holyoke College)
Diya Chopra (Bowdoin College)
Sarah Clothier (Wesleyan University)
Courtney Colwell (Johns Hopkins University)
Alexa Comai (Middlebury College)
Tattiana Dadabbo (Stanford University)
Jennifer Davis (Yale University)
Melissa Epstein (Franklin and Marchall College)
Brook Feldman (George Washington University)
Grace Fioramonti-Gorchow (Haverford College)
Adaline Fulton (Columbia University)
Michele Garceau (Cornell University)
Ragini Ghose (Mount Holyoke College)
Emma Glickman (Vassar College)
Lex Horwitz (Bowdoin College)
Christina Huchro (Stanford University)
Hayley Hughes (Drexel University)
Alexandra Imperiale (Wesleyan University)
Kira Keating (Princeton University)
Lauren Kotin (Brown University)
Bea Kuijpers (Middlebury College)
Alessandra Lampietti (Wesleyan University)
Tatum LeClair (Wesleyan University)
Jocelyn Lehman (Yale University)
Lauren Leizman (Cornell University)
Kayley Leonard (Harvard University)
Margaux Losty (Cornell University)
Kirina Gair MacMichael (Mount Holyoke College)
Ananya Mahalingam-Dhingra (Williams College)
Selena Maity (Yale University)
Madeleine Mayhew (Virginia, University of)
Haley McAtee (Amherst College)
Sophie Mehta (Harvard University)
Alyssa Mehta (Harvard University)
Cherylann Mucciolo (Vassar College)
Hannah Nice (Vassar College)
Katrina Northrop (Brown University)
Madlen O’Connor (Columbia University)
Haley Parsons (Williams College)
Emma Roberts (Dartmouth College)
Lucy Rowe (Stanford University)
Hannah Safford (Brown University)
Hannah Scherl (Cornell University)
Tara Shannon (Stanford University)
Rebecca Slotkin (Vassar College)
Marie Stephan (Pennsylvania, University of)
Olivia Terzian (Bard College)
Elizabeth Varoli (Connecticut College)
Zoe Wood (Bowdoin College)
Tia Min Wu (Vassar College)
Sue Ann Yong (Harvard University)

2017-2018 Women’s CSA Academic Recognition Award Recipients:

Grace Alburger (Georgetown University)
Malia Bow (Northeastern University)
Lumi Kinjo (Wellesley College)
Beverly Lipsey (Smith College)
Carley Petrone (Johns Hopkins University)
Nicole Powers (Northeastern University)
Olivia Taylor (Colgate University)

The College Squash Association (CSA) has released the Men’s Scholar Athlete and Academic Recognition Awardees for the 2017-2018 season.

The Scholar Athlete Award (varsity team players) and Academic Recognition Award (club team players) is granted to juniors or seniors who have played on the team throughout their college career, participated in the majority of the team’s matches in the top-10 of the lineup during the season, and achieved a high academic standing at their institution. For full criteria, please see here.

CSA Scholar Athletes represent the values of the association and student athletics—players achieving a high level of play on court while excelling in the classroom. The association congratulates all of this year’s awardees.

2017-2018 Men’s CSA Scholar Athlete Award Recipients:

Cameron Bahadori (Amherst College)
Charles Blasberg (Brown University)
Thomas Blecher (Brown University)
Jordan Brail (Cornell University)
Pierson Broadwater (Yale University)
Grayson Bubrosky (University of Virginia)
Satya Butler (Bowdoin College)
Zachary Cole (Haverford College)
George Cooley (Bowdoin College)
Tom De Mulder (Trinity College)
Simon DeBevoise (Bard College)
Philip Demeulanaere (Brown University)
Madhav Dhingra (Harvard University)
Julian Dime (Bard College)
Ben Eisenberg (Williams College)
Samuel Epley (Dartmouth College)
Matthew Epstein (Colby College)
James Evans (Trinity College)
Louie Feingold (Connecticut College)
John Fitzgerald (Williams College)
Nathaniel Fry (Drexel University)
Pranjal Sudhir Ghate (Bard College)
Brian Giegerich (Dartmouth College)
Matthew Giegerich (Dartmouth College)
Palak Goel (Brown University)
Alexi Gosset (Harvard University)
Elliot Gross (Colby College)
John Harvey (Dartmouth College)
Ashad Hajela (New York University)
Alvin Heumann (Dartmouth College)
Jeffrey Hu (MIT)
Karim T. Hussein (University of Pennsylvania)
Gregory Edward Hyer (Naval Academy)
Vikramaditya Joshi (Bard College)
Osama Khalifa (Columbia University)
Harith Khawaja (Amherst College)
Thomas Kingshott (Yale University)
Arjun Kochhar (Yale University)
Michael Kumar (New York University)
Yahya Ladiwala (Wesleyan University)
Josh Lane (Wesleyan University)
Andrew Litvin (Williams College)
Jay Losty (Yale University)
William McBrian (Colby College)
David Merkel (Amherst College)
Andrew C. Muran (Cornell University)
Frank Murray (Franklin and Marchall College)
Anirudh Nambiar (Bates College)
Mandela Patrick (Harvard University)
Henry Pearson (Middlebury College)
Aidan Porges (Tufts University)
Ashish Ramachandran (New York University)
Royston Raymond (Drexel University)
Max Reed (University of Pennsylvania)
Ian Rothweiler (Cornell University)
Arhum Saleem (Columbia University)
Numair Sani (University of Rochester)
Abhimanyu Shah (Princeton University)
Komron Shayegan (Princeton University)
Bradley Smith (Harvard University)
Noel Solomon (Drexel University)
Carson Spahr (Dartmouth College)
Ryan Swope (Middlebury College)
Thomas Walker (Brown University)
Jonathan Zeitels (University of Pennsylvania)

2017-2018 Men’s CSA Academic Recognition Award Recipients:

Matthew Berstein (Stanford University)
Yousef Hindy (Stanford University)
Raghunath Kadamangudi (University of Chicago)
Amanda Izes (Swarthmore College)
Raghav Mehrotra (Stanford University)
Sam Permutico (Stanford University)
Matthew Peterson (Swarthmore College)
Yanghan Qi (Swarthmore College)
Faizan Rahim (Siena College)
Nathaniel Sandalow-Ash (Swarthmore College)
Juan Sarmiento (Stanford University)
Peter Satterthwaite (Stanford University)
Matthew Stewart (Stanford University)

The St. Lawrence women’s team has been awarded the prestigious Chaffee Award for team sportsmanship. The honor is voted on by all college varsity teams, and this is the first time St. Lawrence has won the award.

“It is truly an honor to receive this award,” said St. Lawrence head coach Chris Abplanalp, “This is a very special group of young women. We have a great group of leaders in our senior class and it showed this season. I am proud of the way they represented themselves and St. Lawrence University. “

The St. Lawrence women also captured the Liberty League season championship in January and finished No. 24 in the college season final rankings.

According to senior captain Allie Brazo: “As a senior, this award is really important to me because this team has strived all year to be the best we can be. I’m extremely proud of the way we’ve carried ourselves on and off the court and am glad we can represent SLU in such a positive way!”

The Chaffee Award is given annually to a women’s team coach whose team has demonstrated the qualities of sportsmanship, teamwork, character, and improvement. In 1987, the women’s squash team at Williams College donated the award in honor of their former coach, Clarence C. Chaffee. Chaffee began Williams’s squash program in 1938, coached the school’s first intercollegiate team in 1939, and led the program until his retirement in 1970. In the words of Jack Barnaby, the legendary coach of Harvard University and longtime friend and colleague of Chaffee: “If ever I had a favorite amongst my rival coaches it had to be ‘Chafe’… His love of competition, his unfailing sense of fair play, and the values he and his wife exemplified to all his players made him such a beloved coach that his fame went far and wide and still flourishes today. I know I speak for all the coaches of his era when I pay him tribute: We loved him, too.”

The Brown men’s team has been awarded the prestigious Sloane Award for team sportsmanship. This marks Brown’s second Sloan Award, and first since 1997.

“The team are thrilled to receive this award,” commented Brown Head Coach Stuart le Gassick, “It was a team goal for the season as a whole and everyone on the squad deserves a pat on the back for training and competing throughout the season in the best spirit of the game.”

Brown finished No. 12 in the final team rankings for 2017-2018, a seven-position jump from their placement last season. The Bears upset Drexel in the first round of the Hoehn Cup draw on February 23 which ensured their top-12 placement.

According to team captain Charlie Blasberg: “Playing clean and fair squash has been a goal for us in training and matches all season. Receiving this award is a testament to Stuart’s ability to assemble such great people to be on this team every year. The team identifies itself as a group of lighthearted guys who love to play squash, and that really came through this season.”

An award for team sportsmanship was first given in 1981. The team that won the award that year—Williams College—was coached by Sean Sloane. A nationally ranked hardball player, Sloane had been coaching both squash and tennis at Williams since the 1970s, and his teams were known for their spirit and sportsmanship. Sloane eventually left Williams to serve as the Director of the USTA’s Education and Recreation Program, but when he returned to coaching in 1997 at Haverford, his teams continued to be recognized for their sportsmanship. The award was renamed in Sloane’s honor in 2005.

The College Squash Association (CSA) has released the 2017-2018 All-American selections. All-Americans represent the highest level of competitive excellence in college squash, and are chosen based on in-season and championship play.

Harvard led the total count with nine selections, trailed by Trinity with eight; that these teams led the field was no surprise after the Harvard and Trinity teams faced off in each of the women’s and men’s title matches. Harvard’s championship team posted the most women’s All-Americans with six, while St. Lawrence garnered the highest number on the men’s side with four.

Osama Khalifa of Columbia, a graduating senior captain and 2017 college individual champion, earned his fourth men’s First-Team selection. Princeton’s Olivia Fiechter and Penn’s Marie Stephan achieved the same feat by earning four consecutive women’s First-Team honors.

To view the CSA criteria for All-American status, please see here.

Women’s All-Americans:

First Team
Reeham Sedky (University of Pennsylvania)
Georgina Kennedy (Harvard University)
Melissa Alves (University of Pennsylvania)
Sabrina Sobhy (Harvard University)
Kayley Leonard (Harvard University)
Lucy Beecroft (Yale University)
Amelia Henley (Harvard University)
Olivia Fiechter (Princeton University)
Marie Stephan (University of Pennsylvania)
Raneem Sharaf (Trinity College)

Second Team
Zoe Foo Yuk Han (George Washington University)
Vanessa Raj (Trinity College)
Kira Keating (Princeton University)
Sue Ann Yong (Harvard University)
Min Jie Teh (Trinity College)
Laila Samy (Wesleyan University)
Tanvi Khanna (Columbia University)
Julia Le Coq (Trinity College)
Salma Alam Eldin (Trinity College)
Alyssa Mehta (Harvard University)
Casey Wong (Stanford University)

Men’s All-Americans:

First Team
Saadeldin Abouaish (Harvard University)
Ahmed Bayoumy (St. Lawrence University)
Timmy Brownell (Harvard University)
Andrew Douglas (University of Pennsylvania)
Alvin Heumann (Dartmouth College)
Karim Ibrahim (St. Lawrence University)
Youssef Ibrahim (Princeton University)
Osama Khalifa (Columbia University)
Kush Kumar (Trinity College)
Spencer Lovejoy (Yale University)
David Ryan (Harvard University)
Velavan Senthilkumar (Columbia University)

Second Team
Mahmoud Abdel Maksoud (George Washington University)
Omar Allaudin (Trinity College)
Moustafa Bayoumy (St. Lawrence University)
Ashley Davies (University of Rochester)
Tomotaka Endo (University of Rochester)
Harrison Gill (Yale University)
Belal Nawar (St. Lawrence University)
Lucas Rousselet (Drexel University)
Ziad Sakr (Trinity College)

The College Squash Association (CSA) has formed a search committee to vet candidates for the position of Executive Director / League Commissioner.  The committee consists of CSA independent director, Jeanne Blasberg (chair), Peter Lasusa, Gail Ramsay, and Jacques Swanepoel.  Members of the CSA Board of Directors will also interview finalist candidates.

The search committee appreciates the help of the squash community in identifying excellent candidates. The ideal candidate will be a strong communicator who commands respect and will be a fair and unbiased arbiter in the highly competitive environment of college squash. Nominations and recommendations of candidates are welcome.  A complete job description is available here.  Questions and suggestions can be sent to the committee chair at search@csasquash.com .