Big showing for Bisons at under-19 squash nationals

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This article was published 06/05/2010 (5935 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The future of Canadian women’s squash could very well be at its brightest right here in Manitoba.

At the recent Canadian Junior Nationals in Calgary, a pair of Winnipeggers finished in the top four of the under-19 tournament.

Alix Younger took the gold medal, her third national championship in five years, while Melina Turk had her best ever national showing with a fourth place finish.

“I didn’t really have any expectations going in,” said Younger, a 17-year-old St. Vital resident who will have a chance to repeat as the under-19 champion next year. “I just wanted to play well, and I ended up winning.”

Turk went into the event with the same approach, and came out just as happy as her Winnipeg Winter Club training mate.

“I just wanted to play well,” said the 18-year-old from Southdale. “I wasn’t looking to win; I just wanted to play my best. I was very happy with (the results) because I had never done that well before.”

For Younger, the victory marked a return to the top of the national podium after a two-year hiatus. The Grade 12 Vincent Massey Collegiate student won back-to-back under-15 championships in 2006 and 2007, but settled for silver and bronze medals in the under-17 category.

“It felt good getting back on top,” Younger said. “It was nice to win (as a 17-year-old), but I’ll still have to work even harder to win it again because the girls coming up will be even better.”

The two athletes — who Turk jokingly refers to as “partners in crime” — both believe they benefit from being able to train together on a constant basis.

“It helps a lot to train with Alix,” said Turk, whose father, Gene, won mutiple national championships and coached the national men’s team for 16 years. “I push myself to try to keep up. It’s good to have girls to play at that level.”

Younger added that she and Turk also spend many of their training sessions playing against male competition, which only makes them stronger when facing the country’s best young women.

“We play the guys a lot, which helps because they’re so much stronger than you,” Younger said. “You can always take aspects of their game and apply it to the girls.”

The two players will be taking very different, but equally exciting, routes after competing against the country’s best female players in this week’s Canadian championships in Vancouver.

Younger plans to take a year off from school to test her game on the North American professional scene. With improved consistency and better deception techniques, she believes she can find success.

Unlike other sports, success on the professional squash courts doesn’t usually translate into a financial windfall.

“You definitely can’t make a living at it,” Younger said. “I’m doing it to see how far I can move up the rankings and for the love of the game.”

Turk, meanwhile, has been recruited to join the squash team at Dartmouth, a prestigious college in New Hampshire.

The 2009 graduate of J.H. Bruns Collegiate said attending the Ivy League school had been a dream for her ever since she was in Grade 9, when she visited the campus for a squash camp.

avi.saper@canstarnews.com