The University of Toronto Varsity Blues women’s squash team fought their way to a silver medal at the 2008-09 OUA championships (Feb 14) hosted by the University of Western Ontario Mustangs in London, Ont.

The Blues fell to the host Mustangs in Saturday evening’s OUA final, only able to take one match from the team they defeated in the opening match of their undefeated regular season. The Mustangs, who were back to full strength with the return of the OUA’s top female player Stephanie Edmison, (Toronto, Ont.), proved too strong for the Blues.

Daniah Shamim (Oshawa, Ont.) was the lone Varsity Blue to come away with a win in the number five position. She defeated Western’s OUA rookie of the year Kathleen Horman (Toronto) in straight games 10-8, 9-6, 9-1.

Other notable performances include Edith Chow’s (Thornhill, Ont.) rallying effort to tie things up with Rachael Forgeron (St. Catharines, Ont.) in the number three spot. Unfortunately, she dropped the fifth and deciding game to fall 3-2 (4-9, 6-9, 9-5, 9-4, 4-9).

After taking the first game 9-0, first-year player Ruchi Chawla (Oakville, Ont.) dropped the next three games to Giselle Delgado (North Vancouver, B.C.) in the number six position 9-0, 3-9, 0-9, 2-9.

On Saturday morning, the Varsity Blues dominated the McMaster Marauders in semi-final action winning
6-0. In a very close and entertaining match, OUA first team all-star Karlene Headley-Cooper, (Mississauga, Ont) overcame fellow first team all-star Kristina Taylor 3-1 in the number one spot.

Number two Megan Northey (Victoria, B.C.) played her best squash of the season to overcome Sunaya Gupta (Toronto) 3-1, while lower down the order the Blues won comfortably as OUA all-stars Chow, and Camilla Marmoush (Cairo, EGY), as well as number five Soojin Yi (Oakville, Ont.) and number six Rebecca Tristan Aldave (San Luis Porosi, MEX) all came away with 3-0 victories over their respective opponents.

Blues head coach David Cooper was very pleased with the weekend’s performance.  Toronto has now medalled in nine consecutive OUA championships. In that period, the Blues have won four gold, three silver and two bronze medals. 

Full Results

In other action, the McGill Martletts defeated the Marauders to earn the OUA bronze medal.