Lucas Punkari
Even though he played his last match of the season Saturday, Muskie Taylor Whitehead still is trying to come down from the emotional high of earning a fourth-place result and the antique bronze medal in the boys’ ‘C’ flight at the OFSAA badminton championships.
“I still have the feeling like I am up in the air right now,” admitted the 14-year-old, who only is in Grade 9 at Fort High.
“It was an awesome experience, and to finish that high in my first year was pretty amazing,” he added.
“Plus, to come back [home] with a medal in my first year is a pretty major accomplishment because not many people are able to go to those event and bring a medal back.”
Having already experienced what it’s like to compete at a major event with a pair of trips to the youth nationals the last two seasons, Whitehead showed little stage fright in his opening match Thursday afternoon—defeating Eugene Chan of Oakville in a three-set thriller (22-20, 18-21, and 23-21).
“That [match] was probably the closest one that I had,” Whitehead recalled.
“It was a back-and-forth game the whole time, and he actually had three match points on me in the last set.
“But I was able to work out of it,” he reasoned.
The rest of the NWOSSAA champ’s opening day at the provincials was not as successful.
He was knocked out of the ‘A’ flight after a two-set loss (13-21/10-21) to Dan Wei (Waterloo), then lost his opening ‘B’ flight contest to Andre Genier of Cochrane in straight sets (13-21/14-21).
“The first player that he lost to [Wei] would go all the way to the ‘A’ quarter-finals, where he lost to the third overall seed,” noted Muskie head coach Tracy Rob.
“Those two players were very strong Grade 12 competitors, and you could see that they were a lot farther along than Taylor in their overall development,” she added.
“I was able to see what I could do against those players, though, and what I needed to improve on,” Whitehead said.
The lessons Whitehead learned in his losses Thursday—the first two he had suffered all season—were put to great use Friday in the ‘C’ flight.
He swept aside Ashton
McInnis (Tecumseh) in straight sets (21-12/21-7) before winning a three-set quarter-final affair over Collingwood’s Uki Akimoto (12-21, 21-14, and 21-14).
“I just got used to figuring out what their biggest weaknesses were,” Whitehead remarked.
“In the second [match], I figured out after the first set that my opponent wasn’t as strong on his left-hand backhand, and I just went from there.
“After I won that game and I found out that I was going to be headed into the ‘C’ medal round, I was really excited,” he enthused.
In the ‘C’ semi-final later Friday, Whitehead went back-and-forth with Peterborough’s Jacob Harvey—only to come up short as he fell in three sets (12-21, 21-18, and 19-21).
“That was a very close [match] and the final set could have gone either way,” Whitehead noted.
“He’s got so much more height and skill than I have, though, and he was able to use those things to his advantage in the end,” he reasoned.
In the third-place match in the ‘C’ flight Saturday morning, Whitehead found himself up against Cole Osbourne of Kingston, who happens to be one of the best under-19 squash players in Canada.
“He was playing the game like he was on a squash court instead of a badminton court, and it worked for him,” Whitehead said.
Although he fell in straight sets (14-21/8-21), Rob was quick to point out the match was a lot tighter than the scores may have indicated.
“Some of the rallies were unreal to watch as they would go back and forth for at least five minutes until someone scored a point,” she said.
“Taylor gave him a run for his money, but he’s not quite at the level of play that his opponent is at as of yet,” Rob conceded.
With three more years of high school eligibility left, Whitehead already is planning to get back to work soon on improving his game for next season.
In fact, he plans to attend a badminton camp in Winnipeg for two weeks during the summer.
“Right now, though, I plan to get a little bit of rest in,” he quipped.
“Overall, I felt like I did well this weekend in getting the bird to the back of the court and keeping it back there, along with making the other players work for their points,” Whitehead explained.
“I would just like to improve overall with my consistency going forward, and I also want to get better at my net game,” he added.
“Now that we have seen a lot of the different styles, shots, and footwork skills that the top players in the province use, we can adapt that into Taylor’s game,” Rob said.
“We have a much better idea of what level the rest of the province is at now, and we know what we have to work on here over the next three years,” she reasoned.
