The 48th Annual Price-Bullington Invitational (“P-BI”) will take place over the weekend of October 26-28, 2018 at The County Club of Virginia in Richmond. This historic tournament features a full draw of 16 men and 8 women, representing the best college squash players in the country. In fact, and no pressure from VSRA, the P-BI Champions often go on to become the US National Champions. With net proceeds going to Squash Rocks!, VSRA’s inner-city squash program profiled in recent issues of this newsletter, please consider making a donation to the P-BI via our website at https://vasquash.com/pbi/. Of course the P-BI is open to the public as well so plan to attend and watch these top college squash players battle against each other.
2018 Fall Classic
From November 9-11 the 2018 Fall Classic will bring together some of the finest and most enthusiastic squash players across the Mid-Atlantic and beyond. The Country Club of Virginia, which recently completed a state-of-the-art renovation of its squash facilities, will again host the event and is centrally-located near popular restaurants, retail locations, and affordable overnight accomodations. In addition to the Men’s and Women’s draws, the 2018 Fall Classic will offer the inaugural Doubles Invitational as part of the tournament. New this year as well is the VSRA Party on Saturday, November 10. Featuring a cocktail buffet, full bar and music by Full Moon Fever, the party will be a marquee event this Fall and a fun opportunity to socialize with fellow squash players and their guests. VSRA and the Tournament Committee look forward to welcoming you to Richmond with registration to play and attend the VSRA Party available at https://vasquash.com/fall-classic/. If you have any questions in the interim please do not hesitate to reach out to Tournament Director Jose Calderon at jslscalderonr@gmail.com.
2018/2019 Richmond City Squash League
With over 250 participants across 28 teams the 2018/2019 Richmond City Squash League is one of our largest leagues ever. Participants range in age across seven decades with a number of our teams being run by 1st time captains. With 9 regular season rounds involving 1,000+ individual matches, ours is the 6th largest league in the United States behind only Massachusetts, NYC, Northern California, Philadelphia, and DC.
With the introduction of US Squash’s Clublocker software, the recording and tracking of matches has become simple and our league has continued to grow rapidly for many reasons. First, squash provides a quick, intense cardio workout that attracts time-constrained, health-conscious people. Second, self-scheduled matches allow busy people to find a mutually convenient time to compete. Third, the league benefits from the commitment of a host of volunteer captains.
Around Town
In addition to the upcoming P-BI and Fall Classic below is a list of future squash events in Virginia. Information on all of these tournaments is available at https://vasquash.com/. (1) Salty Hawkins – 1/25/19 to 1/27/19 (Venue: Country Club of Virginia, Richmond, VA) (2) Virginia State Open – 3/22/19 to 3/24/19 (Venue: Country Club of Virginia, Richmond, VA) (3) 2019 WSA Richmond Open Professional Squash Tournament – April, 2019 (Venue: Country Club of Virginia, Richmond, VA)
Club Focus – Downtown Y
With the help of VSRA the YMCA of Greater Richmond brought three new squash courts on line this Summer at the Downtown Y on West Franklin Street. The city’s newest courts significantly expand the number of accessible courts in the Richmond metro area, both fostering the growth of our sport and creating a permanent home for VSRA’s youth squash programs including Squash Rocks!. Now in its ninth year of operations Squash Rocks! provides year-round on-court training and mentoring to youth in our city, often in collaboration with academic support organizations. Launched in late 2017 donors to VSRA’s capital campaign funded the construction of these courts as well as part of the ongoing operating expenses of Squash Rocks!. Throughout this process the YMCA, one of the world’s largest non-profit organizations with operations in 120 countries, proved to be a wonderful collaborator with VSRA. After the necessary funds were raised the court construction process took roughly 60 days to complete, resulting in three beautiful side-by-side converted squash courts with both upstairs and downstairs viewing galleries. This new facility helps make sure everyone has the opportunity, through our sport of squash, to learn, grow and thrive. In addition to the wonderful youth programming it is also worth noting that the YMCA Squash Center is off to a great start among its members, fielding 3 of the 2018/2019 Richmond City Squash League teams. With a visit from former World # 1 Nick Matthew and amateur and collegiate events already taking place this is surely just the beginning of many, many successful years of squash at the YMCA Squash Center. Feel free to reach out to John Patton, Director of Squash for the YMCA Squash Center, at PattonJ@YMCARichmond.org directly with any questions or comments.
Tidbits
Among other items look out for an article on the 2018 WSF World Masters Squash Championship in the next issue of the VSRA Newsletter.
Regarding future VSRA newsletters please feel free to e-mail any ideas you have for topics, points of interest, and the like to Info@VASquash.com. Thank you.