Both varsity squash teams traveled to Andover the weekend of Feb. 12-13 for the New England championships, with the boys placing fourth and the girls finishing sixth at the event.

Seeded third, the boys won their opening match against Andover 6-1 in a new experimental format for New Englands in which teams played full matches against each other, as is often done at Nationals.

The Bearcats then dropped their semifinal match to perennial powerhouse Brunswick, 7-0, and then lost a nail-biter to Deerfield 4-3 to end the tournament.

Callan Venkatesan ’23 at #1, Oscar Okonkwo ’25 at #4, and Thomas Bailey ’22 at #6 each won two matches in the tournament. Also competing for Hotchkiss were John Nicholson ’22 at #2, William Burke ’22 at #3, Eli Levy ’24 at #5, Christian Waldron ’23 at #7, and Liam Waldron ’25 at #8.

The girls team competed in a more traditional format featuring separate draws for each seed, with the combined performance of all seven players determining the team’s overall score. Each of the Bearcats won at least one of their matches, with Maya Mansoor ’24 earning the highest result for Hotchkiss, finishing third at #2.

Also competing for Hotchkiss were Elise Kang ’25 at #1, Mary Wood ’23 at #3, Virginia Wood ’25 at #4, Campbell Burke ’24 at #5, Lauren Sonneborn ’23 at #6, and Tori Jenkins ’24 at #7.

Each team will play head-to-head matches this week before heading to Nationals the weekend of Feb. 25-27.