This post was updated April 15 at 11:06 p.m.

“Electric, nervous, exciting – and you want to tear your skin off when your teammate misses a shot,” said Andrew Tkachuk, the UCLA squash team captain.

UCLA squash, founded in 2021, walked home with a second-place trophy for its women’s team and tenth place for its men’s following the 2025 College Squash Association National Collegiate Club Team Squash Championships. The team trained on four-walled courts in the John Wooden Center until renovations when practices moved to Santa Monica

UCLA squash created the first women’s club squash team on the West Coast, said Alveena Khoday, the women’s team captain. The lack of women’s club teams in the region meant it had no previous matches against other women’s teams to determine its level, said Mehma Jolly, the women’s team president.

Without experience against other women’s teams, UCLA women’s squash was seeded lower than they hoped to be going into nationals, said Jolly, a fourth-year human biology and society student. However, after petitioning the CSA, the team moved up to the bottom of the first division, she added.

The team went in expecting very little, said Khoday, a second-year financial actuarial mathematics student. But then, they placed second in the nation.

“In that moment, when we won the tiebreaker, I screamed,” Jolly said. “All the girls started hugging me.”

The squash teams earned their titles after overcoming campus and court closures due to the Los Angeles County wildfires in January and renovations to the John Wooden Center, said Micah Kim, one of the founders of UCLA squash and the team’s 2024-25 president.

The team drove to TRIFIT health club in Santa Monica to prepare for the national championships in mid-February, since Wooden’s squash courts were closed, Khoday said. They split rides and stayed as fit as possible, she added.

“It just made everyone work twice as hard in half the amount of time to prepare,” said Kim, a fourth-year business economics student.

Membership and court time at TRIFIT cost $100 per player, adding up to $5,000 per month, Kim said.

Needing to pay for membership and court use at TRIFIT added onto the team’s existing financial burden, said Aadi Bhandari, the 2025-26 club president. As a club team, UCLA squash must find it own funding for tournament expenses, merchandise, coaching and, as of winter quarter, court time in Santa Monica, he said.

“Every single member who joins the team pays $100, $150 at the start of the year,” said Bhandari, a third-year business economics and data science student. “That just shows the level of commitment every team member is putting in to raise the money to make sure all the logistics work out, and that is translated into results on and off the court.”

[Related: John Wooden Center construction presents relocation issues for clubs, activities]

The team’s determination and passion carried it through this year’s obstacles, Jolly said.

“I feel more like a family than a team,” said Hannah Hong, a first-year theater student and the team’s 2025-26 social director.

Both teams cheer each other on at tournaments whenever possible, said Tkachuk, a second-year mechanical engineering student. Older members hosted a dinner after a Bay Area competition where they shared homemade Indian and Korean food and positive aspects about their days, Khoday said.

A supportive environment was especially important for the women’s team as they faced nerves going into nationals, Jolly said.

“At the end of the day, you can practice as much squash as you want, but if you don’t believe in yourself, and you don’t believe that you deserve your spot on court, you’re not going to play well,” Khoday said.

As of April 14, no courts at Wooden are available to play squash. Though signs on the first floor courts claim the upstairs Racquetball Court #10 is available for squash, a paper sign on Racquetball Court #10 says squash is not permitted until further notice.

The renovation is set to end early 2027, according to UCLA Recreation. If the courts are still under construction next school year, the team will continue to face challenges to logistics, finances and preparation, Kim said.

“The most important thing is we’re a set of really good friends who have a shared love for the sport and a shared sense of responsibility towards the sport and towards our college,” Bhandari said.