By Will Stone
Sports Editor
It’s not easy being Number One, and Haverford Squash’s number one spot, Andrew McComas ’13 will be the first to agree. Last Saturday, McComas and his teammates on the Men’s Squash team closed their season with an overall record of 4-11. Nonetheless, the Squirrels’ performance at the National Championships bumped them up one notch to 38th in the nation.
Coming off a win and two losses in last weekend’s tournament, McComas has emerged from his rookie year a seasoned competitor and, more importantly, an enthusiastic Ford “Squasher.”
Captain of his high school team at Choate Rosemary Hall, McComas had to make the leap into the daunting arena of collegiate squash with little room for error. As a freshman, shouldering the pressures of the number one spot is no easy task. And McComas didn’t waltz into the season with any pretenses of his own infallibility.
“People expect something like a young hot shot, but that wasn’t the case with me at all. I wasn’t even sure I was going to be exactly number one until the season started,” McComas said.
“The competition has been high — sometime I feel a little outclassed.”
With a young team and a new coach, this past season has been a transitional one for Men’s Squash, and McComas has had to shake off his share of disappointing performances as well.
In the season’s fourth match against the University of Southern California, McComas played the last individual match in what was an overall tied game. He squared off with one of the top 50 ranked players in the nation.
“It was really frustrating and not a situation that I was used to,” McComas said. “There were several losses early on in the season like that, where we barely came out on the losing end.”
However, as the season progressed, so did McComas’ skills. He came out with several tough wins over competitors like Vassar and Lafayette College. Yet, just as notable for McComas was his team’s development over the season, even in the face of losses.
“We lost our match against Columbia, which was disappointing. But we didn’t even look like the same team as in the beginning of the season. We really looked like a squash team, not a bunch of guys that played squash.”
McComas hesitates to give himself much credit or even to list his strengths. Instead, he points to all the ways he has tried to improve on his game; a game that, at times, can be just as much a mental as a physical one.
“I have worked on not going out there and, when I realize someone is better than me, not getting so frustrated that I just end the match early. I have just concentrated on winning as many points as I can and trying to play with the good players — not thinking of myself as subpar.”
McComas describes himself as an incredibly competitive person, but that’s not what comes across when conversing with him off the court. An unassuming freshman who is interested in Chinese and the Nerf Club, McComas speaks about squash with the collected ease of an athlete who above all enjoys the sport and his team.
He even convinced his two friends, Ezekiel Barnett ’13 and Tim Ibbotson-Sindelar ’13, to join the team, and maintains a healthy, competitive friendship with Zef Konst ’12, who holds the number two spot on the team.
“Andrew’s a strong player with good racquet skills and nice shot selection. When we play, I try to keep out of the middle because if I left the ball get too far of the wall, he can really put me on the ropes,” Konst said. “We play each other a lot, but he is also one of my close friends.”
McComas will be a strong asset for Haverford Men’s Squash in the seasons to come. His appreciation for the game makes it difficult to imagine anything otherwise.
“The practices every day and the long matches on the weekends can seems to some people like a waste of time. But for me it is a time to forget about academics or any other problems in my life and focus on something completely different. On the days when I go with that attitude, I do a lot better. That’s really why squash is important to me.”
This article is © 2008 The Bi-College News. The material on this page is free for personal or educational use, but may not be reproduced, reprinted, republished, redistributed, or otherwise transmitted to a third party without the express written permission of The Bi-College News, 370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041.
Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
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