I can not believe that it is the end of March, which means the end of winter. Looking back on February, Emily and Alice attended the Squash Interscholastic National with the AB team in Philadelphia. The team got 4th place. Regarding the first interscholastic National Championship, the real meaning to take away was that such achievement for a public school team was absolutely a thing for us. The experiences from junior suqash tournaments in the past one and a half years taught me that part of this environment is unhealthy or even harmful.
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| Alice and Emily with AB Team in Philly, March 2024 |
Therefore, the major change in our attitude toward squash will be very clear in 2024. For Emily, squash is always enjoyable; playing in club or high school teams and contributing to the squash community would be her long-term effort. For Alice, she will continue to keep her private lesson in addition to the team practice. Alice is still in the junior tournament, but we aim to challenge herself and pursue personal improvement. There are probably 3 years to go if she also has the same commitment to rowing in the future. She hasn’t started her formal rowing training, though.
Emily was also in Sarasota for rowing training and the Sarasota Invitational Regatta one week after the Squash Interscholastic National. This was good training and a warm-up preparation for the coming Spring regatta season. We really hope BAB can sail into National Champion again in the summer.
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| Sarasota Invitational at Nathan Benderson Park, FL |
In March, Alice attended her first GU13 Gold Squash Tournament and got 9th place, which was a nice start. However, we did see Alice’s improvement and she also earned the award for the most improvement players for the AB them for this squash winter Season. In the meantime, we decided to skip the Squash Junior Silver National Championship because we believed that we could maintain a better appetite for squash if we did so.
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| Award for the Most Improved Player, AB Team |
The good thing was that Emily’s right knee bruise recovered as we had expected. The medical bills, including physician/NP fee, MRI, and PT, were indeed not a small expense. However, everything was worth it. With full strength, Emily had her personal record (PR) of 2K ERG: 7’50” in Ergzilla and even won coach’s complement three times!
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