Queen's Swimming

Queen's Varsity Swimming traveled to Toronto, Ont. to compete at the 2022 OUA Championships, hosted by the University of Toronto, this past weekend. This was the team's first official meet since 2020. 

Although this was the majority of the teams' first time off the blocks for the past two years, they swam impressively well and achieved some personal bests. The women scored 176 points, just a near eight points behind Carleton, finishing seventh, and the men scored 170 points overall, finishing eighth. 

These team standings are remarkable as Queen's matched and even improved overall in comparison to the 2020 OUA results (the last meet the team raced at prior to the pandemic). The 2020 meet came after a full year of consistent training, whereas this meet's results showed the determination the team kept amidst two years of challenges, restrictions, and long pauses in regular training. 

On the women's side, Queen's top scorer was rookie Kimberly Song. She scored 18 individual points, with an eighth place finish in the 50m breast and a 10th place finish 100m breast. Song also contributed to multiple point-scoring relays. 



The second top scorer was rookie Gabrielle Eivers with 15 individual points, finishing seventh in the 200m butterfly and 14th in the 100m butterfly. 

Other point-scoring finishes included Claire Campbell in the 100m fly, Makayla Duff in the 200m fly, Elisa Dumanski in the 800m free, and a fifth-place finish for 4x200m freestyle relay (Elise Laupland, Elisa Dumanski, Hanna Schlotzhauer, and Lauren Mage). 

Queen's top-scoring individual on the men's side was Matthew McDonald, with a total of 24 points. Matthew finished seventh in the 100m backstroke, 11th place in 50m backstroke, 11th in the 200m backstroke, and heavily contributed to two sixth place finishes in the medley relays.

The second top scorer was Luka Gobovic, with 11 points from an 11th place finish in the 100m backstroke and 12th in the 200m backstroke. 

More points were scored with sprint freestyle events and relays, including Desmond Wood-Anderson, who broke Queen's 100m freestyle record from 2005 with a time of 51.57 and finished in 11th place. Wood-Anderson also played a critical role in anchoring the relay legs for five point-scoring relays. 

Further highlighting achievements on the men's side, captain Matthew Halpen was the recipient of the Men's OUA Community Service Award. This award recognizes performance in swimming, academic excellence, and community involvement. Halpen has been one of Queen's top scoring individuals, is an outstanding student as the Senior Portfolio Manager for the Queen's University Investment Council (QUIC), and has shown unwavering commitment and leadership that will leave a lasting impact on the team's culture. 

As the 2022 OUA Swimming Championships conclude this year's season, the team would like to thank coach, Erin Lee, for facilitating the overall success. Despite the disadvantages the team faced throughout the last two years, especially in comparison to other teams who did not encounter any challenges or breaks to their training, the swimmers were dedicated to the sport and the results paid off. Queen's swimming is now excited to see what can be accomplished in years to come.

-Sophie Deasy

Queen's Cycling

Queen's Cycling's results in the 2022 Canadian Collegiate Cycling Association Virtual Championship Series (on the platform RGT) so far: 

The Gaels currently sits in first place in the team omnium with 418 points, ahead of University of Toronto Road Racing in second with 265 points and University of Ottawa in third with 240 points.

Queen's Triathlon athletes have been joining in the alumni category and posting podium results as well. 

The depth of the Gaels' women's side has been highlighted with the variety of riders taking podium spots, and consistently having a dominant number of total riders over the rest of the schools. And there are a few new riders taking part in their first cycling races throughout this series as well (Kailee Fennell, Grace Adie-Berube, Lana Tse).

Individual Omnium after Weekend 3 (overall points from every race in the series) 

• Dan Coolican currently sits in second in the Men's Cat 1 individual omnium
• Adam Schneider sits in first in the Men's Cat 2 individual omnium
• Chloe DesRoche sits in first in the Women's Open individual omnium
• Melissa Wong sits in second in the Women's Open individual omnium

Weekend 1, Toronto Grand Prix – Jan. 22 (TIme Trial) and 23 (Criterium)

• Chloe DesRoche: first place, Women's Open Time Trial (TT) and first place Women's Open Criterium
• Adam Schneider: first place, Men's Cat 2 Criterium and second place, Men's Cat 2 TT
• Dan Coolican: second place, Men's Cat 1 Time Trial
• Sarah Fabbro: second place, Women's Open TT and third place Women's Open Criterium
• Kailee Fennell: second place, Women's Open Criterium 

Weekend 2, Ottawa Grand Prix - February 12 (Road Race) 

• Dan Coolican: first place, Men's Cat 1 Road Race (RR)
• Adam Schneider: first place, Men's Cat 2 RR
• Chloe DesRoche: first place, Women's Open RR

Weekend 3, Waterloo Grand Prix - March 12 (Circuit Race) - could also be used in varsity club weekend recap since this happened on Saturday

• Chloe DesRoche: first place, Women's Open Circuit Race (CR)
• Erika Rankin: second place, Women's Open CR
• Melissa Wong, third place, Women's Open CR 

Wrestling

Queen's Wrestling competed at the Western Open in London, Ontario on Sunday, March 13. All wrestlers faced tough competition and put up a good fight. Caius Hayes placed fourth in the 90kg weight class after hard fought matches against top competition. This was the team's last tournament before they compete at the OUA Championships at Brock University on April 2.

Men's Squash

Men's Squash finished fifth at the OUA Men's Squash Championship in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. over the weekend. The Gaels were in a pool with Western and Guelph with the top two teams to advance to the medal round.

With their top three seeds recovering from the flu, Queen's suffered a heart-breaking 4-3 loss to Guelph on Friday before losing to Western 7-0.

The Gaels came away with two wins in the consolation round, defeating McMaster 7-0 and Brock 6-1 to finish fifth. Rookies Duncan Genge and Salah Elsherif, and veteran Michael Che has strong tournaments. Apart from their sole losses against Western, they all won their other three matches.

Women's Squash

Women's Squash won their seventh straight OUA title at the OUA Women's Squash Championship over the weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake. For full details, click here.