Joey Payeur
Brian Church’s most potent weapon the past two years now is sowing new oats in the land of wheat and “Rider Pride.”
But that doesn’t mean the coach of this year’s Muskie badminton team isn’t armed with some high-quality players who plan to make their own noise.
The black-and-gold, which held its first practice Monday and will host a five-team exhibition tournament this Friday, took a big off-season hit with the departure of Taylor Whitehead to Saskatchewan.
The Grade 11 student dominated the past two years in senior boys’ singles play despite being only a junior-aged player.
He won both the NorWOSSA and NWOSSAA titles twice to make back-to-back appearances at OFSAA.
Church is now left to contemplate who will take over the team’s leadership role.
Thankfully for him, he has plenty of willing and able candidates, with seven seniors on this year’s squad.
“Aaron Bujold is going to play senior, even though he’s in Grade 9, because junior division players can’t go to OFSAA,” Church said about the rookie, who is ranked as the top player in his age division in Manitoba after rampaging through the tournament scene there over the past year.
“I expect for him to be a regular participant at OFSAA in the years to come,” Church added.
“We’ve got our senior doubles team of Cam Jolicoeur and Adam Taylor from last year, as well as Jeremy Shypit, who in senior singles had a really good year for us last year.”
Another prospective candidate to have a break-out season is Thunder White, who didn’t compete officially last year but practised with the team all season and usually against Whitehead.
“He could be senior boys’ singles but we’re not sure where Thunder is going to end up playing quite yet,” Church admitted.
On the junior side, a total of 15 players—all rookies—represents an increase in that division for the Muskies compared to last year.
But the higher numbers also have presented Church with a problem as nine of the rookies are girls.
Under NorWOSSA rules, the team only can carry a maximum of eight (and just six if none of them are willing to participate in mixed doubles).
“There’s no real standouts yet for the juniors as I’ve only seen them a couple of times,” noted Church.
“Friday will be their first real test to see what they can do.”
The exhibition tourney, which gets underway Friday at 10 a.m. at Fort High, will include teams from Atikokan, Ignace, Whitefish Bay, and Rainy River.
It will serve as a tune-up for the NorWOSSA qualifier next Wednesday (April 1) in Atikokan.
The top three teams in each division at the qualifier advance to the NorWOSSA championships April 9 in Sioux Lookout.
From there, it will be the top two in each group that advances to NWOSSAA on April 15 in Thunder Bay.
Another top-two finish will be necessary at NWOSSAA to make it to the OFSAA, which runs April 30-May 2 in Markham.
Players there will get to compete at the brand-new facility constructed in advance of this summer’s Pan-American Games being hosted by the Toronto region.
