Despite two losses to end the season, this year’s team of Lions saw great improvement

Terry Ting

The University of Western Ontario Mustangs watch on as one of their own returns a University of Waterloo serve.

Terry Ting

The York Lions badminton team showed considerable resilience in bouncing back from a blowout loss, nearly rewarding the home crowd with a bronze medal.
    The Lions provided fierce competition for their opponents in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) championship bronze medal game, but ultimately came up short, losing to the University of Toronto (U of T) Varsity Blues by 10 matches to 3.
   Four of Ontario’s best badminton teams competed at the Tait McKenzie Centre on Nov. 21, when the Lions hosted the 2009 OUA playoff tournament.
   The Lions were in tough as they took on the number-one ranked University of Western Ontario Mustangs in their first game of the day.
    The Mustangs had won 25 straight matches heading into the OUA playoffs, a remarkable streak that dates back to the start of the 2006 season.
    Western showed why they sat atop the OUA standings for the past three years and put the Lions behind quickly, winning four matches to take a commanding 4-0 lead.
   The Lions were unable to stop the momentum of the Mustangs as they went on to gain another six straight victories, cruising to an insurmountable 10-0 lead, which effectively
sealed their path to the OUA finals.
   However, York’s mixed doubles duo of Gyan Sambhaloo and Kousina Luxchumykanthan broke the Mustangs’ shutout with some wonderfully placed serves and returns.
   The ever-impressive Western squad downed York by a final score of 12-1, pushing their winning streak to 26 straight games and setting up a showdown in the finals with the Waterloo Warriors.
   The stage was set for one of the OUA’s largest upset victories.
   Western started the final in similar fashion, jumping out to a 2-0 lead. However, Rahim Karmali and Andrew Tai-Pow of the Warriors sparked the comeback, knotting
the game up at two. The doubles portion of the competition proved to be Western’s nemesis, as they dropped four straight games, falling behind 6-2.
    Karmali said his team’s turnaround was simply a result of good coaching.
   “We just listened to our coach,” said Karmali, a French major at Waterloo. “Whenever he came out to talk to us at the break, we seemed to follow exactly what he told us and got the points because of it.”
   All the Warriors needed is one more set victory to seal their first OUA championship since 2004, and they got it from all-star Martin Giuffre and Jennifer Lam.
   The Warriors shocked the Mustangs by a final score of 8-5, giving the OUA its first new badminton champion in five years.
   Meanwhile, on the other side of the court, the bronze medal was being decided between the Lions and the Varsity Blues.
   With the blowout loss to Western still fresh on their minds, York was unable to stop the U of T attack.
   Lions coach Robert Ha said that fatigue played a role in their lack of consistency.
   “We needed to be more consistent in the way we played the game,” said Ha, who was named OUA “coach of the year.”
  “A lot of our players played for a second time [in one day] so our energy level became an issue,” he continued.
   Despite being down 4-0 in the match, Ha was seen motivating his players and coaching them whenever possible. His tactics worked; Sambhaloo won his singles match over Graeme MacInnes, bringing the game to 4-1.
    That’s the closest the Lions would get to a medal; the Varsity Blues captured bronze, winning by a final score of 10-3.
   However, despite the two losses to end the season, York can still take solace in the fact that, under Ha, this year’s group of Lions was greatly improved from last year’s team.
   The team can also look forward to the fact that the core of the group, besides captain Anthony Chow, will be returning next year for another crack at the OUA title.
   With Ha trying to follow the Western player development model of chemistry and consistency, there will be minor tweaking to a roster that needs little of it.
  “I don’t know what [Western] puts in their water, but they’re pretty good at getting the right players together,” joked Ha following their loss to the Mustangs.
  “We’re definitely trying to make our team more like them, in terms of success and style of play.”
   Whatever Western’s recipe for success is, Ha is looking to mimic it. How well he does so will be determined next year.

OUA ALL-STARS (MALE)

Martin Giuffre – Western
Peter Butler – Western
Andrew Tai Pow – Waterloo
Rahim Karmali – Waterloo
Jesse Assing – Uof T
Kevin Cheng – York
Jon Ma – Western
Andrew Zhuang – Waterloo

OUA ALL-STARS (FEMALE)
Jennifer Lam – Western
Shilin Cheung – U of T
Alex Bruce – Western
Cara Cheung – Ryerson
Michelle Li – U of T
Amanda Carruthers – Waterloo
Melissa Hill – U of T
Laura Vandervet – Western

MALE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Martin Giuffre – Western

FEMALE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Michelle Li – U of T

OUA MVP MALE
Martin Giuffre – Western

OUA MVP FEMALE
Shilin Cheung – U of T

COACH OF THE YEAR
Robert Ha – York