Joey Payeur
Brian Church has seen this movie before and anticipates another feel-good ending.
The coach of the Muskie badminton team watched Grade 9 rookie Aaron Bujold mow down his older, more experienced opponents to finish in first place with a 5-0 record in senior boys’ singles play at the NorWOSSA finals Thursday in Sioux Lookout.
Bujold is following the same path as former Muskie star Taylor Whitehead, who won gold in the same division in both his Grade 9 and 10 seasons the past two years.
He then went on to win NWOSSAA titles both times to advance to OFSAA.
That sets up well for Bujold as he headed to Thunder Bay today for the NWOSSAA playdowns, needing a top-two finish to qualify for the all-Ontarios on April 30-May 2 in Markham.
“Aaron played very well [in Sioux Lookout],” lauded Church.
“His difficulty came mostly with a low-hanging basketball net that obstructed his high clears, or caused them to land out of bounds in the process of missing the net,” he noted.
Bujold didn’t drop a set the whole day, with three of his matches going his way fairly easily in wins over teammate Jeremy Shypit (21-10/21-7) and opponents from the host Sioux Lookout Warriors (21-6/21-7) and Kenora Broncos (21-12/21-9).
However, he did get pushed on against Grant Legaree of the Atikokan Voyageurs (21-16/21-19) and the reigning Warriors’ male athlete of the year in Ryan Dasno (21-16/21-18).
“The close games had [Bujold] working,” admitted Church.
“With Legaree, who towers over Aaron by a foot, the extra reach made smashes land shorter than most players would and [Legaree] could cover much of the court with a few steps,” the coach noted.
“Dasno is a senior in his fifth year of high school and has been a contender for several years,” Church added about the NorWOSSA silver-medalist, who was likely to get another crack at Bujold today in Thunder Bay.
Shypit finished fourth in the division with a 2-3 record.
He defeated his Kenora opponent 2-1 (21-16, 15-21, and 21-15) and one from Sioux Lookout 2-0 (21-9/21-15).
As well as losing to Bujold, Shypit fell 2-0 against Dasno (21-14/21-11) and Legaree (21-6/21-18).
“Jeremy was playing well and put up a good fight against all opponents,” said Church.
“He was disappointed on the day, having hopes of continuing on to NWOSSAA.”
The Muskies, meanwhile, had two senior boys’ doubles teams in Sioux Lookout last Thursday.
Cam Jolicoeur and Adam Taylor took fourth place with a 2-3 mark, defeating teammates Bryce Gilbert and Thunder White 2-0 (21-13/21-5) while also sweeping one of two Kenora Broncos’ duos (21-16/21-16).
Their losses came against the eventual gold-medalists from the Broncos (21-6/21-11), the silver-medalists from Sioux Lookout (21-8/21-15), and the team of Evan Krassey and Kade Arnone from Atikokan (21-6/21-4).
“Cam and Adam played hard all day and, at times, were hot,” Church recalled.
“They usually improved their scoring in the second set of a match but came up a bit short to advance.”
The tandem of Gilbert and White had not made the top three at the NorWOSSA qualifier the previous week in Atikokan, finishing fourth.
But when the Atikokan duo that placed third was unable to journey to Sioux Lookout due to other commitments, Gilbert and White were back in the mix.
It proved to be tough sledding for the pair, however, as they were unable to win a game all day.
They wound up sixth after also being swept by Kenora #1 (21-4/21-7), Kenora #2 (21-7/21-4), Sioux Lookout (21-5/21-11), and Atikokan (21-6/21-4).
“Thunder and Bryce played hard but were outgunned,” admitted Church.
“They have only had a couple of weeks playing as partners and haven’t gelled as a team yet.”
The same fate claimed the Muskie junior girls’ doubles team of Mykenzie Borger and Katelynn Jack, who also went 0-5 in Sioux Lookout to end up sixth.
They were swept by Atikokan #1 (21-11/21-9), Atikokan #2 (21-7/21-14), Sioux Lookout (21-18/21-12), Dryden (21-9/21-10), and Red Lake (21-15/21-19).
“The girls were disappointed on the day, losing to a team they beat [the previous] week, but played well and stayed upbeat throughout the day,” Church said.
“Being Grade 9 students who made it to NorWOSSA, they should be proud and will be better prepared next year,” he added.
