The men’s and women’s squash teams returned from the provincial championships at McMaster with two fourth-place finishes. The men were up against the Western Mustangs in their semifinal match.
Western has won the provincial championship for 23 straight years.
“Western is always a strong team; they get the very best players coming in,” head coach Eugene
Zaremba said. “Realistically, we were looking to go into the bronze medal match reasonably fresh,” Zaremba said. Though Queen’s was competitive against Western, Zaremba said it was difficult to
compete with the talent and skill level of the Mustangs. “The guys are always competitive, but in a long rally, they’ll keep the ball going, but they’ll likely lose the point,” he said. “The guys played really well, but the result was expected.” Queen’s went on to face Waterloo in the bronze medal match.
In their only regular season meeting, Queen’s tied Waterloo 3-3. “We knew we were really close to Waterloo, and had fairly high hopes of beating them,” Zaremba said. The Gaels lost five of their
six matches. “We did okay,” he said. “We lost 5-1 but again, some of the matches were close and could have gone either way.” Gael Sean Horton was named an OUA second team all-star.
“Sean started for five years on the team as a novice, so this is a really big accomplishment for
him,” Zaremba said. This year marked an improvement for the Gaels. They didn’t qualify for the playoffs last season. The women’s team fared slightly better in their semifinal match against McGill but couldn’t pull out a win. Queen’s lost four of six matches against the Martlets, which was an improvement from their two regular season meetings, where McGill won 6-0 both times.
“The previous matchup against McGill we were missing our top two players,” women’s coach Eric Zaremba said. “It was definitely an improvement and the girls played really well.”
He said Queen’s matched up well against McGill, and the result could have been closer. “We have a stronger bottom half of the team than some of these other teams, so it probably should have been [tied at three],” he said. “We lost one match that we probably should have won.” The loss put Queen’s up against the third-seeded University of Toronto, who beat Queen’s 5-1 in their only regular season meeting. Again, the Gaels improved on their regular season performance, but lost four of six matches
to Toronto. “That match was not bad. The matches were a bit more lopsided than the McGill matches,”
Zaremba said. Women’s team captain Michelle Craig and Rebecca Hazell were both named OUA first
team all-stars. “It wasn’t a disappointing weekend, and it would have been good to get a bit closer, but the girls played really well and that’s the important thing,” Zaremba said.
“We had a really good season.” He said that it’s difficult to predict what next season will bring.
“Squash isn’t a big recruiting sport; you get what you get,” he said. “Hopefully we get another top girl, because we’re going to lose our number four or five next year.
“Basically it’s just about who shows up in September.”
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