The girls’ JV squad put the finishing touch on their undefeated season in a tightly-contested 5-2 win over Choate. Fantastic efforts from every single member of the team helped the Big Green best the Wild Boars and bring their overall, final record to 11-0, a well-deserved, hard-earned, wonderful way to finish the season.
Up first were the evens. Starting off at #2, senior tri-captain Lilley Salmon brought her illustrious Deerfield squash career to a triumphant finish, winning in four games. Though Salmon took the the first 11-7, her opponent used a nice put-away shot to win the second game 11-4. Salmon surged back with an 11-4 win in the third. In the fourth game, Salmon locked the score up at 11-11, then executed for a final two points and a win for Deerfield. At #4, sophomore Christina Li kept things interesting as always, winning the first 11-9 and losing the second, 2-11. Li pulled it together the next two games to get two 11-7 victories in a row and give Deerfield another point. Junior Isabella Geraci showed her might at #6, winning in three games to put Deerfield within a point of the victory (11-8, 11-2, 11-5).
The odds took the court next. At #1, ninth-grader Talbot von Stade had a great first game, grabbing an 11-6 win. The next two games went her opponent’s way, 5-11, 6-11. Late in the fourth game, von Stade still refused to give up, and battled to the final point, ultimately falling 10-12. Senior tri-captain Carolina Conzelman faced a Choate #3 who had been undefeated throughout the season except against historic squash powerhouse Greenwich Academy. Conzelman gave her opponent a tough 11-8 dusting in the first game, then fell twice in a row by the same score. In the fourth game, Conzelman dug in and nearly pulled off a win, but ended up losing 11-13. Conzelman can be proud of capping her final squash match with some of her best efforts ever. Junior Cameron Heard, at #5, had a nail-biting five-game match with her opponent: Heard won 11-8, 11-5, then lost 8-11, 9-11. In the fifth game, with the score locked up at 9-9, Heard did what she needed to do, got the final two points, and added her match to Deerfield’s win tally. At #7, junior Olivia Geraci was the one to clinch the day for Deerfield, winning 11-4, 11-7, 12-10 to secure the team’s undefeated record.
In exhibition, Deerfield went 4-1, as senior tri-captain Olivia Jones, junior Cameron Garner, and sophomores Janis Chen and Helen Mak all won in easy threes. Emma Johnson, in her second competitive appearance for the team this season, had a great game in the first, winning 11-7, before ultimately falling to her Choate opponent 3-1. Including exhibition, the team was 9-3 for the whole day, quite a respectable show of dominance.
The team will greatly miss the leadership, camaraderie, and energy brought by its three seniors next year. Overall, they exemplified the strong squash tradition and depth of the program at Deerfield, embodied the great values of sportsmanship and healthy competition at the heart of the school’s athletics, and brought their best selves to the courts every day.