Lucas Punkari
The Muskie badminton season came to an end last Wednesday at the NWOSSAA playoffs in Thunder Bay.
With a berth at this year’s all-Ontario championships on the line, the boys’ doubles team of Bryson Skirten and Andre Emond finished fourth in the six-team round-robin with a 2-3 record.
The Fort High mixed doubles tandem of Tori Sikora and Connor Bujold, meanwhile, came away with a fifth-place showing after going 1-4.
“Everyone was a little bit disappointed as we didn’t quite fare as well as we would of hoped for,” Muskie coach Brian Church admitted.
“There was some tough competition there and we played in a lot of close games, but it just didn’t work out in our favour, I guess,” he reasoned.
Skirten and Emond, who are both in Grade 12, opened play with a pair of straight-set victories over Brady Coulson and Mark Bodnarchuk of Atikokan (21-16/21-8) and Brian Dang and Michael Yuan of Winston Churchill in Thunder Bay (21-14/21-4).
But the black-and-gold ran into stiff competition from that point on as they lost in straight sets (15-21/19-21) to Dillon Verardo and Evan DeGrazia of St. Ignatius (Thunder Bay), dropped a straight-set decision (18-21/18-21) to Brandon Sullivan and Hudson Hunter of Manitouwadge, and then fell to the eventual champs—Ronald Fogarty and Kevin Gauthier of Manitouwadge—by scores of 16-21 and 6-21.
“They played well up against really tough teams as they have had a few more years of playing together than our guys have had,” Church noted.
“They were disappointed with how they finished up, but I didn’t think they can be disappointed in how they played,” he added.
As for Sikora and Bujold, who are in Grades 11 and 9, respectively, they opened with narrow losses to Dryden’s Emily Kennedy and Brendan Szabo (20-22/20-22) and Marathon’s Jordan Cotton and Abbie Rolf von dem Baumen (18-21, 21-11, and 12-21).
But after two more setbacks to Cody Oslecki and Stevie Wielgosch of Manitouwadge (9-21/10-21) and Enzo DiGregorio and Alyssa Westerback of St. Ignatius (5-21/11-21), the Muskie pair wrapped up play with a three-set win (21-11, 24-26, and 21-17) over Paul Colosimo and Brittany Parsons (St. Ignatius).
“Even though that was their only win of the day, they were pretty excited about it,” Church smiled.
“Overall, though, I think the season was a pretty good one for all of the teams, and everyone out there did their best without any complaints,” he added.
