Whitehorse junior squash players had victories in Victoria over the weekend.
The team of eight returned with two B division titles and a fourth-place finish in the main draw at the Jester’s Pacific Northwest Junior Squash Championships in B.C.
Whitehorse’s Ehsan Idrees cruised through the draw to win the boys under-17 B division. It was his first time playing at a tournament outside of Yukon.
“It went good. It was fairly easy for me, I think I should have been in a little higher group,” said the 16-year-old. “I thought people would be a little harder to play, but it went well overall.
“There are some tournaments coming up and I might go play A since I won my B now.”
Idrees won four straight matches for the title, dropping only one game along the way. He defeated fellow Whitehorse player Graydon McDonell 3-0 in the final.
“I hadn’t played him in a while, so that was an interesting match to play,” said Idrees.
Sana Syed also flew her draw with little difficulty. Syed won five back-to-back matches without dropping a game to capture the girls under-15 B division title, beating Elise McKinnon of Cobble Hill, B.C., 3-0 in the final.
Syed defeated fellow Yukoner Ava Cairns-Locke in the semifinal. Cairns-Locke went on to beat a Shawnigan Lake, B.C. player for third place.
Mustafa Syed took a pair of wins before a pair of losses to place fourth in the A division of boys under 17.
Mustafa, who was the runner-up in the men’s A division of the Yukon Open last year, is currently ranked 44th in Canada for his age group.
Stephen Grundmanis won two of five matches in the boys U19 main draw but did not place. Kai Knorr went winless in the same division.
Kennedy Cairns-Locke, who was a finalist in the junior division of the Yukon Open last year, won her last two matches for bronze in the girls U-19B consolation.
Mustafa, Knorr and Idrees are eyeing a trip to the Canadian Junior Squash Championships in Markham, Ont., this April.
Mustafa and Knorr competed at last year’s junior nationals but were held to one win between them.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com