By Llee Sivitz
Enquirer contributor

Squash is in season. Not the vegetable, the sport.

Played indoors, this offshoot of handball is considered a well-kept secret in Greater Cincinnati sports circles. Nevertheless, a loyal group of adult and junior players are addicted to the non-stop action of the game.

Squash is played inside a 32-by-181/2-foot enclosure with wooden floors. In singles squash, two players hammer it out for nine points a game, using long-faced rackets and hollow rubber balls with minimal bounce. Three to five games constitute a match.

WHERE TO PLAY

Most squash courts are available only at private clubs, including: • Cincinnati Country Club, Hyde Park. • Cincinnati Sports Mall, Fairfax. • Mercy HealthPlex Anderson, Anderson Township. • Mercy HealthPlex Fairfield, Fairfield. • University Club, downtown.

With the opponent by his side, the server careens the ball off multiple walls (the ceiling is off limits), hoping to outmaneuver his adversary's return. Whoever wins the "rally" may serve the next, and only a winning server scores a point.

Unlike tennis, handball or racquetball, a squash ball does not come bouncing back. You have to chase it. And chasing any ball non-stop for an hour is bound to give you lots of exercise.

Louise Stakelin, 48, of East Walnut Hills took up squash in earlier years and came back to it about four years ago.

"Initially, I was a tennis player," she says. " I compare playing squash for one hour to playing 11/2 hours of single's tennis. Squash is a much faster game. You have to anticipate the multiple angles of the ball (path), which throws a whole new perspective into it. I think it's one of the best aerobic workouts you can get, as far as racket sports go."

Jamie Crombie, 37, is head squash professional at the Cincinnati Country Club in Hyde Park. He says playing squash is both aerobic and anaerobic exercise.

"The aerobic comes from running back court to front court and back again. The anaerobic comes from short explosive motions from side to side. It's unique in that way. It's almost full-spectrum exercise."

Although the number of Greater Cincinnati squash players is small, player quality is high.

"There's a strong tradition of squash players here who have done very well, considering the limited number of people who play," Mr. Crombie says.

SQUASH LINGO

• Boast - An advanced shot where you hit the ball on the side wall, then the front wall. • A let - When you run into your opponent. • Go for the nick - A "killer shot," aimed in the corner where the side wall hits the floor at the front wall so the ball rolls, and won't bounce. • Philadelphia - An advanced "zigzag" shot, front wall to side wall to other side wall.

Every year, he says, one of the club's junior players goes on to play with an Ivy League varsity squash team.

One Ivy League hopeful is Daniel Petrie, 17, of Hyde Park. He began playing squash at age 8 and now is ranked second in the nation for boys 17 and under.

"My dad and grandpa played squash and introduced me to it," Daniel says. "During the season (mid-October through March), I play every day for one to two hours, and during the off-season I play twice a week . . . I am definitely looking to play in college . . . I like the pace (of squash); it's so physically intense."

Can you be too old to learn to play squash?

"It was a challenge for me to take up a new sport at my age," says Dr. Michael Draznik, 50, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Mount Auburn who's beginning his fourth season of squash. "Squash was something I didn't think I could do because of my knee problems. But I have been able to do it, and though I'm not improving quite as rapidly as I'd like, I know that I'm going to get better."

Besides the workout, which Dr. Draznik describes as "phenomenal . . . after 45 to 60 minutes you come out with a lather," he extols the virtues of squash's mental conditioning.

"I've never seen a game where you were really forced to concentrate as significantly as you are in this sport," he says. "You totally immerse yourself in the game for the time that you are playing. Being a physician, I've got a fairly intense occupation, and its great to have something else that you can completely lose yourself into."

The popularity of squash will spread by word of mouth, Mr. Crombie says. "People see it and they have never played it before. But when people like this game, they love this game, and they are the biggest ambassadors of it to future squash players."