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19th Annual Bartlein Squash Championships – Santa Barbara by Robert Graham - Squash Professional Santa Barbara Athletic Club Santa Barbara Athletic Club's 19th Annual Bartlein Squash Championships that were held on December 10th – 12th had an entry of 35 players, slightly down on last year, but in keeping with how entries at local events seem to be going. Despite the small numbers, there was a lot of squash played and fun had by all. 8 players, all from Santa Barbara, competed in the Under 14 division, which was the closest junior event we have ever had. Ben Reisman continued his dominance, but not without a tough final match that he won 2-1 against Chad Venturelli. Most impressive was seeing how much all the juniors have improved over the last year and how closely competitive they all were. Patrick Ferroni took 3rd place over Daniel Reisman.At the other end of the age scale, Lou Sans from Los Angeles did not drop a game in the Over 55 division, in which SBAC’s Terry Eagle finished second, Basil Honikman 3rd, and Bob Bartlein 4th.. The Men’s 3.0 round robin division was won by new SBAC member, Nicki Parr, who beat John Aspinall into 2nd place by 3 games to 2. John plays at the new Kennedy’s Club in San Luis Obisbo. Jeff Lipshitz from SBAC lost a close 5 game match to Jeff Ross from the Pierpont Club in Ventura in the Men’s 3.5 round robin final match, which was the only other individual division held. All the other entrants played in one of seven teams in the Teams Event that had a $500 first prize. The #1s had to rated above 5.0, the #2s below 5.0, and the #3s below 4.0. “The Splitz” from Los Angeles were always going to be tough to beat with former world #7, Stefan Casteleyn at #1, but several other teams had strong #2s and #3s, so it was not a foregone conclusion. SBAC’s “The Girls”, consisting of Erik Olson, Debbie Brown, and Michelle Kobashi played some tough matches to make it through to Sunday’s final against The Splitz, but then their efforts caught up with them. Debbie won the opening match against Joe Mersola 3-0, but Erik had no chance against Stefan, leaving it all up to Michelle against Tom Scott to decide where the money went. Had she been fresh Michelle might have made a closer game of it, but with no gas in the tank, she went down 3-0. To finish off the event Jason Jewell (whose team finished a surprising 6th even though he did not lose a match) and I played an exhibition match against Stefan Casteleyn. We had a 4 point start in each game to 11, with PAR scoring, and could tag in and out of the court as we decided. Somehow, we could not settle into any consistent play and make these rules work enough to our advantage, and Stefan showed his skill and athleticism in beating us a close 3-0. A huge thanks must go to Bob Bartlein for his amazing continued sponsorship of this event – next year’s 20th will be something special! |
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