Steve Coppinger Beats Steve Finitsis to Capture Black Knight Cleveland Skating Club Invitational by Ray Lindsay October 30, 2014
- The Cleveland Skating Club ( Shaker Heights, Cleveland, Ohio)
recently held the Black Knight Invitational 17- 19th October
featuring: Steve Coppinger, Steve Finitsis, Todd Harrity, Clinton Leuuw
and a bunch of local pros: Jamie Crombie, Mick Joint, Ian Sly, Joe
Russell,ex local Drewe Williams, Luke Forster as well Hungarian number
2 Lenard Pulaski. Apart from having world class squash come to
Cleveland our aim of the tournament is to raise funds for our local
urban program (www.urbansquashcleveland.org)
which has been in operation for 4 years. Run by Denison alumni
Max Laverty the program is thriving. Through members and nonmember
contributions the tournament raised $5000 to the program… Win- win:
Members see world class squash and help a great cause.
The players are all superb ambassadors of the game and the amount of
lets per match could be counted on one hand, great to see guys go and
play the ball rather than “fish” for lets, and each match was played in
great spirit. They also gave their time to “play the pro” and give a
junior clinic.
The tournament went according to seeding with Steve Coppinger defeating
Steve Finitsis in 4 in the final although he had a scare when he was
pushed to 5 in the semis by his compatriot Clinton Leeuw who has some
of the best “holds” in the game. Todd Harrity defeated Clinton in a
tough non- exhibition,best of 3 for 3rd and 4th place.Todd Harrity
wrote a great article for the program which will be posted next.
