It's Wednesday, 3rd day into the new week and 3 more victories to report on.

On Monday evening, the UCSC Men's E went into action against SCC2 at the Padang and came away with a narrow win on a 2-2 count-back. Chris Yap encountered little opposition on his way to a 3-0 stroll. John Lee cantered to a 2-0 lead before pausing to catch a nap, realised he dropped a set, then wrapped up the match 3-1 before continuing his kip. The sweat began with John Lim (all 56 years of him, but who could have possible known?) in an exciting 2-3 loss. It was a lovely tango with John taking the first set, dropping the 2nd, taking the 3rd, dropping the 4th and then was worn down in the 5th to lose narrowly. Good try, senior. Michael Crowe played a good game against former ladies' national player, Rhonda Koh, but fell to the latter's greater experience and no doubt, being the fine British gentleman that he is, to Rhonda's greater charm as well. Michael did pry the 3rd set from Rhonda and nearly stole the 4th at something like 9-7 before dropping that set to end 1-3 down. A win is a win however and we look forward to the next battle to hopefully extend the winning streak.

I have few details on the Men's D except that Hansel Phua and Daryl Arnold both won their matches while Michael Chua and Gary Wong dropped theirs. They still won on a 2-2 countback, so well done lads!

The following details on the Men's A (SAFRA vs. UCSC) was essentially penned by Marcus Phua, who demonstrates his writing flair alongside his court prowess. Marcus wrote (with some teeny, weeny editing from yours truly):

The evening's match-up saw the first tie between the two teams' respective No. 2's. Simon Yang moved up to take Darren Subramaniam's spot against one-time club (Ulu Pandan Squash Club, for those curious) team-mate, Jazreel Tan. Darren had twisted his ankle over the weekend... get well soon, Darren and safe trip back to KL. Both Simon and Jazreel arrived early at SLF and the pre-match tension was tangible. Both did their warm-ups in relative silence, not letting anything disrupt their focus.

The match started with both playing safe squash. It seemed like "keep the rallies long" was the sole tactic that both had in mind. However, it was Jazreel who was a little more clinical in finishing off a rally which made the difference in a  very tight first set. First blood to Jaz. Simon switched tactics and went for shots in the second set. When this did not pay off and Simon found himself 2-6 down, he switched tactics again and reverted to good old basics which was the hallmark of his squash in the past 2 1/2 decades. No prizes for guessing the formula.....RUN! And run he did, dug deep, picked up everything that Jaz unleashed and forcing the latter into errors from frustration. 11-7 to Simon and even stevens. What a comeback! The next 2 sets swooshed by with both players playing well in patches and taking one a-piece of the 3rd and 4th, forcing the exciting match into a rubber. It was an error-ridden 5th but thankfully, mostly made by the SAFRA No. 2. All of Simon's running clearly paid dividends with Jaz being forced repeatedly into errors and there emerged a victorious Simon, a 3-2 winner.

Tie #2 featured the team's No. 4s. The SAFRA camp was stunned to find Jason Ho from the UCSC 'B' stable and it wasn't clear if it was fear of Jason or  plain surprise that we unveiled Jason against veteran Tan Hock Leng...... or perhaps a little of both. This account is short on details as there's really little to highlight. Jason was in control almost throughout the encounter with one set even seeing Hock Leng securing only 2 points. Only a lapse of concentration in the 3rd set made the scoreline a little more respectable. Jason and UCSC..... 3-1 winners.

Tie # 3 featured the teams' No. 1s ... Marcus Phua vs. veteran Victor Koh. Marcus started out the match with a plan and that was to keep the pace as fast as he could. The catalyst for this game plan was probably the result of study-stress (for Marcus) and he injected further venom by banging the (poor) ball really hard. The first set was tight, neck to neck till 8-8 before Victor started struggling to keep up and Marcus wrapped up the match then. With the older SAFRA player clearly feeling the effects of the first set, Marcus closed out the 2nd set fairly easily. The 3rd set saw a brief Victor revival before a change of tactics by Marcus to go for shots, caught the SAFRA player by surprise, half a step slower, and unsure if Marcus was preparing to drive or drop. The game plan worked like a charm and Marcus secured a 3-0 victory to set UCSC already on the victory platform for this match-up.

It was down to Phil Mockridge to wrap things up against Jeremy Khoo, whom Phil had most recently defeated in the Singapore Closed event and was expected to add another point for UCSC. However, Jeremy had other ideas. The SAFRA man played really well, setting up the rallies and finishing them off with low, tight drops. It was only late in the 3rd set that Phil started to come back into the match at 7-10 down. Clawing back to 9-10, the Englishman gave the tie a nail-biting finish. Jeremy was clearly feeling the physical strain but with one last good cross court which surprised Phil, Jeremy gratefully won 3-0. One can only wonder what may have been, had Phil snucked home the 3rd.

It was nevertheless, a good outing and the campaign trail continues after next week's Masonry Nationals. Good luck to all UCSC-sians doing battle in that event.

UCSC Lives & Breathes Squash!