U. S. Father & Son National Doubles Update: Lemmons Out-Last Spahrs In Route-Going Open Semi, Will Face Simontons In Final
by Rob Dinerman, for DailySquashReport.com
Dateline April 22nd, 2012 --- Trailing 7-5 in the fifth game after a squandered 13-6 lead had nearly cost them the fourth, the top-seeded defending champion Lemmons, Geordie and his 18-year-old son B. G., embarked on a six-point run to 11-7 and were able to hold off a late rally by Chris Spahr and his precocious son Carson and emerge with a riveting 17-14 13-15 9-15 18-15 15-12 victory late Saturday afternoon in the semifinal round of the eighth annual U. S. Father & Son National Doubles Championship, held as always in midtown Manhattan. The Lemmons will now face 2006 U. S. Father & Son champs Scott and Will Simonton, who in an also-memorable bottom-half semi had pulled off an 18-16 in the fourth triumph over the heavily-favored duo of Greg Park (fresh off teaming with Preston Quick to win the U. S. National Doubles in Rye three weeks ago) and his father Steve, who had won this tourney three-straight years from 2007-2009, defeating the Simontons in the 2007 and 2008 finals, before missing the 2010 and 2011 editions. Both the Lemmons, who took the 17-and-Under event in 2010 before defeating the Simontons in a four-game Open division final a year ago, and the Spahrs, who in four previous appearances in this tourney had won the 13-and-Under event from 2008-2010 and taken the 17-and-Under title last year, had never lost a match in this tournament prior to yesterday’s seesawing and route-going 80-minute battle.
Neither have Tom Poor, still holding up amazingly well at age 68 and with joint replacements in both knees and his left hip, and his son Morgan, who made a compelling debut in the Century draw of this tournament last year when they fended off two fourth-game match-balls against them en route to a comeback win (15-10 in the fifth from 10-all) over the 2010 Century champions Jack Wyant and his oldest son Jack Jr., a Princeton captain in the mid-1990’s and currently the head coach at Penn. These two tandems will be having a rematch in the Century final early this afternoon in the wake of the Poors’ five-game win over the Fenwicks, Charles Sr. and Jr., while the Wyants prevailed, albeit barely (18-16 in the fourth) in their balancing semifinal with the only Canadian entry in this year’s tournament, Steve Millard and Mike Hirschmann from Ontario. After six different winners in as many holdings of this Century flight (to be eligible for which the two team members must have a combined age of at least 100), which was added to the mix in 2006, today’s action is guaranteed to finally produce a repeat champion.
There are also three “junior” draws, the 13-and-under, 15-and-under and 17-and-under, all of which are round-robin flights which will be resolved by today’s results. Credit is especially due to the Spahrs for passing up a beckoning fifth straight junior-level Father & Son title and electing instead to compete in the Open field even though Carson, who became the youngest player by several years to advance to the Open semifinals when he and his father (who partnered Doug Lifford to the U. S. 45-and-over doubles title earlier this month) defeated Guy and Peter Cipriano in straight sets in Saturday morning’s quarterfinals, will not turn 15 until the last few days of this month and is only a ninth-grader at Milton Academy, for whose varsity squash team he played No. 1 this past winter as a freshman.
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