CSUS goes national

The nation’s elite high school squash programs no doubt looked at the Gryphons’ squad side-eye.

“We’re the only team from California, the only one with middle schoolers, one of the few with a girl on the team. If I was on one of those teams from the East Coast and saw us, I would have laughed,” said Udai Pal, a Crystal Springs junior and team captain.

But just get the Gryhons on the court and any laughing quickly ceased.

“After the first game, some of the people playing against middle schoolers (on our team), came off the court, they were like, ‘What just happened?’” Pal said.

Crystal Springs — which is comprised of Pal, Kunal Valia (junior), Avi Mushran (sophomore), John Ho (eighth-grade), Rohan Valia (eighth-grade), Roshni Pal (eighth-grade and Udai’s younger sister) and Himashu Pannu (sixth-grade) — is the three-time reigning Northern California high school champion. The Gryphons went 2-2 at the national tournament to finish sixth in Division 2 and 22nd in the nation overall.

The tournament format is similar to the one used for high school tennis locally. Seven singles matches, first team to four victories wins the match. Crystal opened the tournament with a 4-3 win over SCH B. They fell to HLM, 5-2, in the quarterfinals, sending the Gryphons to the “Classic Plate” bracket. They beat Lawrenceville 4-3, but saw their tournament come to an end with a 4-3 loss to Conestoga A.

Three years in the making

The tournament appearance is the result of three years of work by Pal and Kunal Valia, who vowed during their freshman year that they would take Crystal Springs to the national tournament.

And it was not some long-shot flier Pal and his team took. He knew that Crystal Springs could put together a team formidable enough to take on the big boys.

“The squash community is pretty small, especially in the Bay Area,” Pal said. “I knew (with the talent we had at the school) we could go out there and put up a fight.”

But Pal needed to convince the school that it would be worthwhile to send the club to Philadelphia for a tournament.

“We laid it out for [the school administration]. We have a pretty good group of squash players and it would be foolish not to put our talents on display,” Pal said. “(It was all about being) persistent. Just keep knocking on the door. Just explaining to [the administration] what it means to play in a national championship, to represent your school. It’s never really happened before with a team from Crystal.”

Athletic director Rob Cannone was interested and started working with Pal. They talked to the school’s booster club and it paid for the airfare. Cannone then used some of the athletic department’s funds, got donations from others and raised the necessary money to send the team back East.

New to the concept of ‘team’

But the team needed one more assist from Cannone — it needed him to be their “coach,” essentially serve as the team’s chaperone and fill out paperwork for the tournament.

While Cannone may not know the first thing about squash, “[that tournament was] the first time I’ve seen a squash match. It was a brand-new scene for me,” he does know a thing or two about coaching high school kids.

Having spent the previous six years as the Gryphons’ baseball coach and 28 years of coaching overall, Cannone knows his way around the mindset of a high school athlete.

“Having coached for so long, some things transfer,” Cannone said. “I may not know one thing about squash strategy, but I can tell them to let that last point go. … I can tell them to believe in themselves. Stuff like that translates across sports.”

Cannone could also help the team function as just that — a team. Because all the members of the squash team are accomplished juniors players, they are used to the individual aspects of the sport. The team concept was a new one for them.

“(Being a part of a team) is very different. I had never played on a team before. When there were close matches, my teammates were cheering me on,” Pal said. “It’s fun. It’s interesting. You have to be a teammate and also be like a mentor (for the younger players). For many of them, it was the first time traveling without their parents.”

Said Cannone: “They’ve competed in smaller tournaments, but this (national tournament) was massive. To see the camaraderie, it turned quickly from an individual sport into making it bigger than just themselves. Helping coach their peers and rooting for them, it was really different for them.”

Acknowledging the sport

With the team’s first national appearance having gone as smoothly as it did, Cannone is looking to make it a permanent member of the Crystal Springs athletic department. As it currently stands, the team is still technically a “club.” By adding it to the rest of the sports at the school, Cannone believes it will show that the school is committed to supporting the squash players.

“It gives them more opportunities to practice as a team. Most of our (squash playing) kids now are ranked and compete on an individual basis, mostly out of the Bay Club in Redwood City,” Cannone said. “But what [adding the team to the athletic department] really does, it makes our school more inclusive. To make them feel a part of the athletic program at our school.

“There are more (squash players at the school) than what we sent and certainly more players looking into [the sport]. It’s certainly sustainable.”