Squash Ends Season at CSA Championships

By MADDIE BIMONTE SPORTS EDITOR

It is the end of the road for Fordham Squash as they conclude their winning 2022-23 season in Philadelphia at the CSA Individual and Doubles Championships.

This event included both a singles performance from freshman Nicholas Gilman and two doubles performances from freshman Jack Stanley and sophomore Bennett Van Liew, and the mixed doubles pair of sophomore Sofia Arseniev and junior Henry Frawley.

Gilman went into the singles play as the 16 seed, starting off his play against number one seeded Joachim Chuah from Trinity College. He went on to drop the match in three games, 11-1, 11-3 and 11-5.

His run wasn’t over yet as Gilman fell into the consolation bracket and played United States Naval Academy’s Matthew Wang, who bested Gilman in three games, 116, 11-5 and 11-1.

Over in the doubles categories, Stanley and Van Liew also had difficulties, dropping their round of 32 match 11-1, 11-2 and 11-2 to Western Ontario University’s Griffin Manley and Dylan Deverill.

The group with the most success at the CSA’s came in the mixed doubles pairs with Arseniev and Frawley advancing to the round of 16, winning their match on Friday, 11-4, 11-3 and 11-5.

They would go on to drop their match on Saturday, 11-7, 11-4 and 11-6, eliminating them from the rest of competition.

While it may have not been the most ideal ending to a great season, the Rams have greatly improved upon what they wanted to accomplish last season after going 9-15 in 2021-22. best baseball you’ll ever see. One of the things that immediately stands out is how quick the pitchers work. And let me tell you, it never took away from the suspense and the tension of the moment.

This year, the Rams dazzled at home, going 13-3, and starting off the season strong with a five-game win streak, their highest of the season.

The team will stay relatively the same going into next season as the team only has two seniors, Caleb Schumacher and Justin George. Hopefully, these Rams can improve their record even more than a solid 20-11 finish.

Joez McFly, a personality from Jomboy Media and a popular presence on baseball Twitter, posted a clip from the 2016 NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. On the mound is Pedro Baez, a reliever infamous for taking his time in between pitches. In the clip, there’s nearly two minutes of dead, non-action time in between Baez’s first pitch and second pitch. Simultaneously, a looped video of a Jose Altuve insidethe-park home run was able to play in full seven times. Jose Altuve hit seven inside-thepark home runs in between one pitch to another. That’s insane, and while it’s obviously an extreme example, it is a reminder of how slow these games can get, especially in the big moments.

Right now, the pitch clock doesn’t look great. The important thing to remember is it’s not supposed to look great. The goal of Spring Training is to get MLB players in the rhythm so that they’re ready for the pitch clock come April. Umpires are being told to enforce the pitch clock rules as strictly as possible. The goal is for the pitch clock to be an afterthought. No one wants pitch clock violations, and they certainly don’t want it affecting the game’s big moments.

In the winter, former MLB player Raul Ibanez and EVP of Baseball Operations Morgan

Sword, who both served on the rules committee, sat down with Jomboy Media to discuss the rule changes. “Our minor league experience was very bumpy as people get adjusted, and the first couple weeks of Spring Training, you’re gonna see some bumps,” said Sword. “But people get adjusted. The number of violations each week of the minor league season just falls off a cliff. As players get into a routine, they figure it out.” Right now in Spring Training, the average is close to two a game. As players get used to it, that number will fall.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty about how these rules will ultimately be enforced. Recall that a pitch clock has technically been in place for several years, it just hasn’t been enforced. That’s what it really comes down to.

What we all need to keep in mind is this is the point of Spring Training. We have a chance to work out the kinks before it really matters. MLB might have to put in place a new amendment to prevent Mets starter Max Scherzer from manipulating the pitch clock to mess with batters. Who knows exactly what April will look like? There’s a very real possibility that come the regular season, the umpires are not as strict with enforcing the clock as they were in Spring Training.

There’s also the possibility that players will adjust to the speed. As long as games aren’t being decided by pitch clock violations, everything should turn out alright.