Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON – A pair of dynasties continue this season with the Western Mustangs Men's team winning their 40^th consecutive OUA Championship in dominant fashion. At the same time, the Queen's Gaels made it nine years in a row as Women's Squash champions.

The Mustangs Men beat Queen's in the men's final 7-0 and didn't drop a game all weekend.

The Gaels Women's team won 4-3 over Waterloo, It was a close battle with all but two matches going to four or five sets.

In the bronze medal matches Western's Women beat McMaster 6-1. On the men's side, Toronto topped Waterloo 4-2.

Queen's Men's Squash was seeded No. 4 based on the results of last year's championship. Queen's found itself in a pool together with Western (No. 1), Guelph (No. 5) and McMaster (No. 8). Queen's began the tournament on Friday against Western, their toughest opponent. Despite superlative performances by all the players, Queen's came away with a 7-0 loss. In their second match-up of the day, Queen's played McMaster and rebounded with a 7-0 win. Then on Saturday morning, Queen's completed pool play against Guelph to decide which teams would move on to the playoff rounds. Once again Queen's dominated the match-up and swept Guelph 7-0, propelling the team into the semi-finals of the medal rounds.
 
In the semi-finals on Saturday afternoon, Queen's was matched against Waterloo (No. 3), who had upset Toronto (No. 2) in the other pool. The match-up was a nail-biter, with Queen's emerging as 4-3 victors over their opponents. With the teams tied 3-3 in matches, Duncan Genge (No. 5 in the team rankings) found himself in the pivotal match. He surged to a 2-0 lead in games only to see his opponent fight back to win the third game. In the fourth, Duncan was down 9-4 in points but stormed back to take the next seven points to win the game 11-9 and the match 3 games to 1. The reaction of the team was instantaneous as the players swarmed onto the court to congratulate Duncan in his victory and to relish their achievement of going on to the gold medal round. The victory over Waterloo was sealed by wins from Kash Rajagopaul (No. 1), Justin Weller (No. 4) and Yohann Poncha (No. 6), with stellar performances from Salah Elsherif (No. 2), Felix Scholberg (No. 3) and Logan Elder (No. 7).
 
The win over Waterloo put Queen's in the gold-medal round against Western. Given their 7-0 loss to Western in pool play, it was a tall order to improve on this. True to form, and a testament to their domination of OUA men's squash, Western once again beat Queen's 7-0 to take their 40th consecutive OUA Squash Championship. But for the Queen's team, silver was like gold. It marked a significant improvement over their fourth place finish last year and is something to be proud of. In addition to this team achievement, Kash Rajagopaul was one of six named to the Men's All-Star team and Felix Scholberg won the Jack Fairs Award which recognizes exemplary contributions to his team through hard work and dedication. The 2023-24 season will long be remembered as a high point in men's squash at Queen's!


MAJOR AWARDS

Women's Awards
OUA Women's Coach of the Year – Tom Panabaker – Western
OUA Women's MVP – Madlen O'Connor – Queen's
OUA Women's Rookie of the Year – Gabriella Waite – Queen's

OUA Women's All Stars

Madlen O'Connor – Queens
Nikki Shemirani – Waterloo
Keira Rawlins – Toronto
Megha Bhatia – Ottawa
Marlow Benson – Queens
Alessia Ferris – Western

Men's Awards

OUA Men's Coach of the Year – Chris Hanebury - Western
OUA Men's MVP - Sala Eltorgman – Western
OUA Men's Rookie of the Year - Daniel Deverill – Western

OUA Men's All Stars
Sala Eltorgman – Western
Ali Shalaby – Toronto
Dylan Deverill – Western
Akasham Rajagopaul – Queen's
Tyson Schille – Brock
Will Harris - Toronto