District Inferno vs. Philadelphia Freedom
Saturday May 17th, 2025
Doors Open at 5pm – Match Starts at 6pm
Squash on Fire, 2233 M Street, NW Washington, DC 20037
See and root for DC's newest professional franchise—the District Inferno—as they battle the Philadelphia Freedom at Squash On Fire! Some of the finest female athletes in the world will compete in a new and intense team squash match in a unique new format and thrilling atmosphere.
Meet the Inferno—World #10 Amanda Sobhy; World #16 Jasmine Hutton; World # 20 Rachel Arnold; World #45 Torrie Malik; World# 47 Marie Stephan and World #67 Lisa Aiken!
The National Squash League is a new twist on squash—instead of playing individual matches of best of 5 games with 11 point games, there are three timed periods where each team can substitute players and strategically call 2 minute "Power Plays" where only their team can score. Most points in a timed period wins. … Continue Reading ››
The U.S. Junior Squash Championships is the top USA Junior tournament, and it’s open only to the leading 32 US citizens in each age group. Merely being selected for this tournament is one of the highest honors possible for a junior squash player.
Congratulations to all the NCS juniors who gained entry to this prestigious event!
BU19 Sami Garside, who improved 45 ranking spots during the season, also earned the William T. Ketcham Jr. Most Improved Award in his age group for showing extraordinary commitment to the sport while significantly improving their game.
Trinity Moshi notched the top finish among NCS juniors by taking third place in GU15, a personal best finish. Christian Keng also scored a personal best and won fifth place in the ultra competitive BU17 division.
Makeda Moshi, GU17, sixth place;
Akaisha Bhatia, GU17 quarterfinalist;
Zachary Ingber, BU17 quarterfinalist;
Elise Kang, GU19, 11th-12th;
Kian Patnaik, BU15, 13th-16th;
Calla Yim, GU19, 17th;
Shreya … Continue Reading ››
Congratulations to the NCS juniors who earned NCS sponsorships in recognition of their improvement to a national class level of competition or have moved up to a higher level of national competitiveness.
These sponsorships are provided for a player’s first national championship at each level available for competition for the U.S. Junior Squash Silver Championships or U.S. Junior Squash Championships. Players who the NCS Junior Committee estimates can compete for a top 10 finish are sponsored for their first U.S. Junior Squash Bronze Championships.
Aleksei Pilling BU13;
Jonathan Chung BU13;
Neel Sethi BU15;
Julia Lancaster GU15;
Mariam Masoud GU17;
Sophia Akbar GU17;
Arman Sana BU19;
Jaiden Saran BU19
The local championships, which concluded last month, attracted a record 253 entrants and over 370 matches were played.
The annual event is largely self-scheduled and played over several months, but the finals were played March 29 at The St. James.
Congratulations to the winners of each division:
Skill Levels
Josh Taylor—Men Open;
Uma Patnaik—Women Open;
Jordan Lipp—Men 5.0;
Ibrahim Masoud—Men 4.5;
Mariam Masoud—Women 4.5;
Bo Blair—Men 4.25;
Oscar Valdés Viera—Men 4.0;
Mariam Masoud—Women 4.0;
Oliver Mayers—Men 3.75;
Pulkit Parikh—Men 3.5;
AJ Copeland—Women 3.5;
Beckett Hogan—Men 3.0;
Lila Caddell—Women 3.0;
Giacomo Salvadore—Men 2.5;
Emma Sun—Women 2.5;
Yongmei Ye—Women 2.0;
Masters;
Sergio Lopez—Men 40+;
Omar Alvi—Men 50+;
Eduardo Rojas Vega—Men 60+;
Tawhid Nawaz—Men 70+;
Special thanks to David Keating, Ahmar Abbas, and Ben Proshek for their work to organize and run the tournament.
The league finals held in April brought a stirring end to a strong fall/winter season for the National Capital Squash league.
In the 4.0+/5.0 division, Regency A prevailed over Regency B. While Regency A finished three games ahead of its intra-club rival in the regular season, the final was a tight one, with the four matches split 2-2. Regency A took the title by winning just one more game in the matches than its competitor.
The 3.5/4.0 division featured a similarly dramatic end to the season. Though a Regency team again ran away with the regular campaign and their semifinal, Capitol Hill made the favorites work for the title, splitting the four final matches 2-2. Again, the difference came down to a single game.
Congratulations to Regency for winning both divisions.
All told, a record 135 players participated in at least one match during the season across the two divisions. A total of 109 … Continue Reading ››
NCS members Carole Grunberg and Sarah Davidson won titles at the 2025 U.S. Women’s Masters Championships at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center in Philadelphia April 4-6.
More than sixty women competed in the U.S. Women’s Masters and Skill Level Championships, which was held as a stand alone event for the second year in a row, and offered skill level draws in addition to the Masters national championships divisions.
The second women’s 70+ division ever held saw Washington, DC’s Grunberg claim the title without dropping a game. Davidson earned her first national title by winning a five-game 50+ final 12-10 in the fifth against Portland, Oregon’s Kara Hale.
Davidson was honored with the 2025 Women’s Sportsmanship Award during the U.S. Women’s Masters Championships. The Women’s Sportsmanship Award is awarded by the US Squash Women’s Committee to players who have shown exemplary sportsmanship on and off the court.
Davidson was introduced by Grunberg, the 2024 … Continue Reading ››
If you’ve never competed on a junior squash team, now is your chance.
You’ll likely find team squash is fun and a great experience. If you hope to play in college someday, this will give you a taste of playing on a team.
Now is a great time to assemble a team. The National Capital Squash (NCS) Board sponsors high school teams to compete in the US Squash National Interscholastic Team Squash Championships.
This event is open only to teams with students who attend a school without a squash team.
Teams that combine players from two or more schools in the NCS district may receive the sponsorship. Seven players play each match, so most teams use a roster of eight players. Teams are placed in divisions and seeded by skill level, so teams get competitive matches.
The Team Championships are the weekend of January 24 at the Specter Center in Philadelphia, and the tournament … Continue Reading ››
US Squash selects the nation’s top juniors to represent the USA in international competition each summer. Incredibly, six local juniors were offered spots, a record for our area.
Nathan Rosenzwieg was selected to compete in the World Junior Championships, the first time an NCS junior competed in this event since 2010. Nathan is now a first-year player at the University of Virginia, which finished last season with a #8 national ranking.
Elise Kang competed in the Pan Am Junior Championships and scored a Bronze Medal for Team USA.
Three girls represented our nation at the Egyptian Junior Open, considered the third-hardest tournament in the world. Despite being seeded 17/32 in the 32-player GU17 draw, Akaisha Bhatia pulled off two massive upsets in the first two rounds, both by 3-0 wins. First, she beat a 9/16 seeded Egyptian, and then she knocked out the #2 seed, a German, to reach the quarters. Calla Yim took … Continue Reading ››
The 2024 World Masters made history with the largest participation in tournament history as 1,070 masters players from around the world competed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
NCS’s Carole Grunberg was among three Americans who medaled in the event. She earned a spot in the 70+ 1-8 playoff by winning all three of her group matches. Grunberg reached the semifinals with a 3-0 victory, before losing out in the semifinals against Australia’s two seed Gaye Mitchell 12-10, 10-12, 11-4, 11-7. Grunberg then clinched the bronze medal in the 3/4 playoff against Scotland’s Maureen Carroll 11-6, 11-5, 11-6.
Congratulations Carole!
NCS players Sergio Lopez, Deepak Gopinath, Tawhid Nawaz, Asif Ehsan and Ross Campbell also competed for Team USA. The next world masters will be in Brisbane Australia in August, 2026.
Trinity Moshi won the GU15 draw at the 64-draw Dutch Junior Open. Leading up to the final, she won all her matches in three games, then prevailed in a five-game thriller over the top Dutch player.
Akaisha Bhatia scored the best finish among NCS juniors at the season’s first Junior Championship Tournament (JCT), in Connecticut in August, by reaching the GU17 semis. Akaisha also won the Virginia Gold in GU19 earlier this summer. Playing in an older age division, Isabella Tang took 9th place in GU19 at the JCT and Rohan Gondi, who also won the Racquet Up Detroit Summer Junior Gold, placed 6th in BU19. Zack Ingber took 9th in BU15.
Trinity Moshi won the GU17 draw at the Southeast Regional Junior Gold, and Christian Keng won BU17. Sami Garside, Zack Ingber, and Kian Patnaik finished third in BU19, BU17, and BU15, respectively. Several NCS juniors notched personal bests there, including … Continue Reading ››
