Toronto, ON – The Mustangs had a hard fought weekend of competition at the 2023 OUA Badminton Championship and for the second year in a row will walk about with some major recognition for their individual talent.

A year after being named OUA Rookie of the Year, Jacqueline Cheung was named OUA Women's Most Valuable Player at this year's event.

"I was honoured to be named Rookie of the Year last year, as I was going up against so many amazing athletes who were rookies from 3 different years after covid. I'm even more honoured and surprised to receive the MVP award this year as I was juggling both student and coach roles" said Cheung "I'd like to thank every coach out there who voted for me, and my team and family for supporting me through thick and thin."

The Mustangs went 3-0 in pool play picking up wins over Guelph (10-0), Toronto (6-4) and Ottawa (8-2).

In the medal round, the Mustangs would get a bye to the semi-finals with their top seed in the pool and took on the Waterloo Warriors. In an extremely tight match that ended with each side tied at 5-5 so the deciding factor was a tiebreaker which was a slim 1 point differential for the Warriors which sent them to the gold medal match and Western to battle or bronze.
 
In the bronze medal match the Mustangs raced out to a 5-1 advantage over Toronto but the Varsity Blues stormed back to take the final four ties to earn a 5-5 split. The Blues earned the edge taking 11 games to Western's 10. Toronto would take bronze and Western would finish 4th.

"It was definitely tough to know that we were so close to making it on the podium in both the semis and the playoffs. Nevertheless, I am really proud of our team for firstly making it to the semi-finals, and tying both Waterloo and Toronto, given that the level of our team was competing against other teams full of former national players. We never gave up and that's what mattered the most to me." said Cheung

On top of Cheung's MVP award, she was also named an OUA All-Star alongside her teammates Tiffany Too & Noah Xu.

Final Team Standings
1. York
2. Waterloo
3. Toronto
4. Western
5. McMaster
6. Ottawa
7. TMU
8. Guelph
9. Ontario Tech

Major Awards

MVP
Women: Jacqueline Cheung, Western
Men: Victor Lai, York
 
Rookie of the Year
Women (co-winners): Sophia Nong, York & Natalie Yee, McMaster
Men: Victor Lai, York
 
Coach of the Year
Michelle Tong, York
 
Women's All-Stars 
Jacqueline Cheung, Western
Crystal Lai, York
Tiffany Too, Western
Sophia Nong, York
Joycelyne Jaw, Toronto
Ashley Wong, Waterloo
Jeslyn Chow, McMaster
Aditi Mahajan, Guelph

Men's All-Stars 
Victor Lai, York
Noah Xu, Western
Michael Farrell, Toronto
Jonathan Lai, Toronto
Kyle Thompson, Guelph
Jason Ho-Shue, York
Alex Bianchini, Ottawa
Harry Soo, Waterloo