Athletics

athletics Queen of the Court

MAC Squash Champ Margaret Pruett Recruited by St. Lawrence Universtiy

MP: I committed to St. Lawrence University in New York, and I will be going there next fall to play squash. CD: Was that one of the schools that you were looking at attending or was it even on your radar? MP: It was one of my top three schools. I sort of fell in line with St.

Lawrence because of the coaching. Scott Denne [head coach of

St. Lawrence], who had worked here a number of years before I came here, knows Mike Puertas who has held tournaments here and is one of my Burroughs coaches. So I decided to go that route since I knew him, and that’s where I was recruited. CD: Were you recruited by any other schools? MP: I was recruited by Vassar, Haverford, St. Lawrence, Franklin and

Marshall and Bowdoin. CD: When did you start playing squash? MP: I started playing since I could hold the racquet, so probably about age three or four. Competitively, I’ve only played for about six years. CD: Tell me a bit about your squash journey. MP: My dad played in college, so he had my brother and I play at a young age. My brother quit playing, but I took off. I think it was when we moved to the MAC that I started playing competitive tournaments and worked my way up. It wasn’t until this last year that I broke into Gold Level matches. Before that, I was consistently placing well in Silvers, but I hadn’t really gotten to winning a couple rounds in a Gold until the last couple tournaments that I played when I won two rounds in each of the two last Golds that I played. I started to get even better, and of course we were hoping for more, but then COVID happened. CD: Tell me about your experience here. MP: I’ve had a lot of coaches and think it has been good for me, but

I was really excited when Alex [Ingham] came back because he was one of my best coaches. That’s been a real help in the past year since he’s helped push me a little further. Overall, I think the

MAC has been great. After all, I’ve been able to play with other

juniors because there’s not many juniors in the St. Louis area.

Being able to play with the MICDS guys is important because Dena and I are the only girls that play in the St. Louis area who are very competitive. CD: So what has your experience been with Alex as a coach? MP: As I said before, I honestly think Alex was one of my best coaches. It was great when he came back because there has been a lot of coach turnover. It was great to get one that I have had before especially one that worked so well with me. Alex specifically has helped me at tournaments by traveling to the majority of my tournaments. He and Matt Jensen were the only coaches who have traveled with me. CD: What is your favorite aspect of playing squash? MP: I don’t want to sound weird, but I think it is the competition.

That’s definitely one of my favorite things. I like the community as well because I feel like I know a lot of people up here at the Club since we all play squash. CD: What are you most excited about your future playing squash? MP: I think I’m just excited for college squash in general. I’m really excited to keep playing and to have a coach who knows my other coaches as well as my strengths and how to pull those out of me.

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