53 SEA Students Competed in the Varsity College Squash Season / Squash and Education Alliance

53 SEA Students Competed in the Varsity College Squash Season

It was another successful college squash season for the SEA network, as 53 students competed at a varsity level. Students from 13 SEA programs played on the varsity roster at 19 colleges and universities. 12 students played at Connecticut College, six at St. Lawrence, five at Mount Holyoke, four at Chatham, three at both Wesleyan and Hobart. Other college teams with SEA students include Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Denison, Dickinson, Middlebury, Rochester, Stanford, Trinity, Vassar, William Smith, and Williams.

Of 16 SEA seniors who played a varsity level, half of them captained their school teams, including Access Youth Academy’s Joyce Chan at Trinity, RacquetUp Detroit’s Jaz’mene Little at Denison and Aaron Levy at St. Lawrence, and Squash Haven’s Janiqua Davis at Mount Holyoke. Notably, all four of Connecticut College’s co-captains hailed from the SEA network, including CitySquash’s Tanya Mendoza, SquashBusters’s Angela Cao, StreetSquash’s Leslie Gonzalez, and Squash Haven’s Juan Hurtado.

Seniors Zeinab Bakayoko of StreetSquash and Joyce Chan of Access Youth Academy played on the #2 ranked Trinity team, and first-years Brett Poles of SquashWise and Keyel Beasley of Steel City Squash played for #13 ranked Chatham.

“Our students from SEA programs have had an incredible impact on our program,” says Connecticut College Head Coach Scott Brown. “We had four SEA students graduate in 2023, all of them were captains and top 9 players. Angela Cao, SquashBusters alum, received the Andrew H. Chait Service Award for her leadership, dedication, and service to the Connecticut College Department of Athletics. We are excited to continue to have a large SEA presence with half of our team consisting of SEA alums for the 23-24 season and look forward to welcoming Julio Palomino of Squash Urbano Colombia and Gwyneth Perez of SquashHaven.”

20 SEA players were first-year students. “We are so grateful to have had first-year players Brett Poles of SquashWise, Keyel Beasley and Amari Spivey of Steel City Squash, and Ta’Niya-Marie Nored of Racquet up Detroit this past season,” says Chris Fernandez, Chatham’s Head Squash Coach and CitySquash alum. “Their leadership and work ethic brought a lot to the team and we are looking forward to welcoming Obed Garcia of SquashWise next season.” Ta’Niya and Amari played 6 and 8 consistently on the team, leading the women’s team to win the Most Improved Team Award while Brett and Keyel combined for a 6-0 record in matches in the top 9.

In total, 265 SEA high school graduates have played college squash — 78 on a club team and 187 at a varsity level. In addition to the 53 varsity players, 19 SEA students competed for club teams at at Boston College, Boston University, Clark, University of Connecticut, Dartmouth, George Washington, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, Northeastern, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Virginia.

Meet all the Varsity SEA’s 2022-2023 College Squash players below: