Western Squash- 2024/25

 About a month ago I noted that the Western University Squash Team won the OUA Championship for the 41st time -- in a row. For those of you who don't follow such events on Instagram, X or Facebook, here is what the team has been up to over the past few weeks.

   They left Niagara-on-the-Lake after the OUA event and travelled down to New Haven to play Yale on what was "Senior Day" at that institution. The Bulldogs are very tough this year and they won every match against Western. Yale then went on to the 2025 CSA Men's National CollegiateTeam Championship where they lost to the University of Pennsylvania which won the national title and the Potter Cup for the second straight year.
   Western also was in the U.S., CSA National Team Championship in Philadelphia and they went on to defeat Franklin and Marshall to win the Hoehn Cup. The Hoehn Cup is for the teams ranked from 13th to 20th. Western was ranked at No.13 and they won every match against Franklin and Marshall.
    Just over a year ago, I offered a history of UWO/Western's participation in the U.S. Collegiate Championships and it can be viewed  here.  It is great to read about a Western team that has had such success over such a long period.

   A series of photos are provided below. The first one was found at Franklin and Marshall when they reported about the loss to Western. The others are all found on the website of the College Squash Association. Unfortunately, there were no captions. 
  (I have no connection to the team, but I did play a lot of squash at UWO (the intramural, lower-level kind) and anyone who did will remember fondly Jack Fairs. Congratulations to Coach Chris Hanebury for continuing the tradition.)

The Bonus:
   The Championship was held at the Arlen Spector US Squash Center in Philadelphia, which looks like a fabulous facility. Although Spector was a squash player, you probably recognize his name because he was a Senator from the state across the lake from us.

Squash News at Western

   The picture above may look familiar since you will have seen variations of it over forty years. It is from Mustang Communications (2/10/25) where you can read this report about the OUA Squash Championship which was held last weekend at Niagara-on-the-Lake. The Western women's team won gold as well, and the details are provided in this article in The Gazette: "Squash Teams Sweep OUA Championship," Maegan White, Feb. 14, 2025. 
  Such attention is well deserved, but there is typically not much of it up on campus. I suppose the more popular sports naturally attract more attention, even when much less successful, and that the resources for Mustang Communications are rather limited. It is also the case that the squash team matches are not played on campus and some important ones soon to be played, will be played on campus courts in the States. 
   Back in early January the U.S. Naval Academy squash team invaded London in an event that was not much noticed, although Ryan Pyette wrote about it in the LFP, Jan.7: "The Western men's squash team beat the United States Navy 8-1 on the weekend at the London Squash and Fitness Club in the first U.S. college match held here since the pandemic."

   Although the Midshipmen lost in London, the event was well-covered in Annapolis as the photo illustrates and these points indicate: "The 16th-ranked Navy squash team (11-3) dropped just its third match of the season, as #14 Western (4-5) dealt the Mids an 8-1 setback at the London Squash Club in London, Ontario, Canada on Saturday." The results:

1 | Dylan Deverill (W) def Matt Wang (N) // 11-8, 11-7, 11-6

2 | Wenqing Tang (N) def Antonio Mendes (W) // 11-9, 11-3, 11-6

3 | Daniel Deverill (W) def Alexander Orr (N) // 14-12, 11-9, 11-4

4 | Amin Khan (W) def Matthew Kang (N) // 11-7, 11-7, 12-10

5 | Josh Kay (W) def Lucas Spiro (N) // 11-8, 8-11, 11-5, 11-5

6 | William Znidarec (W) def Tighe Mullarkey (N) // 11-3, 12-10, 11-4

7 | Rio Schafer (W) def Ramsay Killinger (N) // 12-10, 12-10, 11-3

8 | Tyson Schille (W) def Michael Tierney Jr. (N) // 11-9, 711, 11-8, 15-13

9 | Griffin Manley (W) def Sean Wu (N) // 11-2, 11-2, 6-11, 11-7

EXH | Ben Boulanger (W) def Holden Woodward (N) // 11-5, 11-3, 11-2
  The rankings above refer to those of the U.S. College Squash Association where Western currently ranks #13. The University of Western Ontario began playing the U.S. college teams under Coach Jack Fairs. I don't think there is any other example of Canadian universities competing consistently with U.S. universities, and at the highest level. The tradition continues at Western under Coach Chris Hanebury who, I am sure, has much less support than the coaches at, say Penn or Princeton. (Tyler Osborne, the squash coach at the Naval Academy, played for Princeton and is from Kingston, ON.)
For a brief history (mine) of UWO versus the U.S. squash teams see:
UWO SQUASH AND THE U.S. COLLEGIATE SQUASH CHAMPIONSHIPS