Written by Bella Wise

Although Rye Country Day’s Boys Squash Team has been ranked near the top of division II high school squash teams, the sport remains one of the most under-recognized and underappreciated at Rye. In fact, some students do not even know what “squash” is. The Rye Crop interviewed third year Varsity player Turner Wolf ‘25 to get a better sense of the sport, to which he replied that squash is “hitting a ball back and forth [with tiny tennis rackets in a sense] against a wall until it either goes out or bounces twice. You continue to play the game until one player reaches eleven points and the winner is best out of five games. You also need to win by two points in each game, so it can go on forever if nobody wins by two earlier.” This sounds pretty simple, but one might be shocked at the level of athleticism the sport takes.

Last season’s graduation of RCDS’s number one ranked player Ben Mathias ‘23 (University of Pennsylvania) was a tough loss for the Wildcats, but fortunately three new members of the team, Angad Sethi ‘24, Tyler Perry ‘25, and Miles Wolf ‘27 will fill the hole left by Mathias. Additionally, the Wildcats have expanded from an eight person to eleven person team.

The captains described that their matches revolve around a ranking system where within each team, the number one ranks would play one another, and so on. The Wildcats Captain Henry Fogel ‘25 leads the ranking, followed by Winn Metrailler ‘26, Chris Mathias ‘25, Captain James Murphy ‘25, and T. Wolf as the top five positions. 

Sethi is the only senior on the team and has had a unique journey as a member of the RCDS Squash Program. He transferred to RCDS his sophomore year and made the Varsity team, and after a break for his junior year, Sethi rejoined the team for his final year as a Wildcat. Sethi has been playing squash since he was 11 years old and has always loved the competitive nature. He explains how school squash is team oriented and matches are different from individual play in the sense that school spirit and support can completely change the outcome of a match. Sethi is most excited for the match against Brunswick because he has never lost a match to them and is “looking forward to embarrassing them.” 

Captains Fogel and Murphy are looking forward to the Lawrenceville match versus the Gilman School on January 6th, as RCDS Boys Squash has never faced them before. Murphy is especially excited for this match to solidify the ‘Cats as a Division I team. In order to help prepare for this match, the Captains will indulge upon their secret recipe to winning: snacks. Murphy enjoys a banana and granola bar, and Fogel indulges himself with a fascinating choice of a singular shot of pickle juice. Fogel was Captain last year as only a sophomore and has two more seasons leading the team, so the pickle juice must be working well!

Captain Fogel hopes to make some changes for the upcoming season, particularly emphasizing fitness and using new livestream equipment to help the players prepare. He also desires to win key matches and to “develop the younger generation of the team in addition to kids joining now in order for them to feel more prepared to lead the team to victory when me and the rest of the juniors and seniors graduate.” Murphy shares Fogel’s hopes in doing well as “this year’s team is the best in RCDS Boys Squash history,” so he hopes to be one of the top twelve teams of the country, as last year the Wildcats were ranked seventeenth.

UPCOMING JANUARY SCHEDULE:

Sat. January 6 vs. Tri-Match @ 3:30 AWAY 

Mon. January 8 vs. Hackley @ 4:30 AWAY

Wed. January 10 vs. Hotchkiss @ 4:30 HOME

Wed. January 17 vs. GFA @ 5:00 AWAY

Fri. January 19 vs. Darien @ 6:00 HOME

Tues. January 23 vs. King @ 4:30 HOME

Thurs. January 25 vs. GCDS @ 4:15 AWAY

Sat. January 27 vs. Haverford @ 10:30 HOME