The University of Toronto Table Tennis Club men’s team missed two opportunities to close out critical wins at the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association’s Eastern Division tournament this past Saturday, while the women’s squad finished second behind a very competitive Western team.
The afternoon’s biggest story was the battle between the U of T, McGill, Ottawa, and Waterloo men’s teams for supremacy. Toronto came painstakingly close to glory, dropping a best-of-five set 3-2 to Waterloo in which at one point they held a 2-0 lead in the fifth game.
A close but comfortable 3-1 victory over McGill followed, but they were again bested in five during their final match of the afternoon, this time to Ottawa. While they held a 2-1 advantage in the series and a 2-0 lead in the clinching game, they couldn’t close it out.
McGill wound up the surprise victors, cruising past Waterloo and Ottawa. Toronto finished fourth. The other three schools that participated were Queen’s, York, and Western.
The women’s team, despite losing many members of its 2006-2008 squads to graduation, managed to place a solid second. They were victorious against McGill and York before the experienced Western club took them out in the final.
UTTTC joined the NCTAA in 2005 because table tennis is not a varsity sport. The club played in the New York division up until last year because there were never enough teams to field in Canada. This year, NCTAA launched an Eastern Canada division, consisting of seven universities. “We at UTTTC are happy to have been and continue to be a strong influence in the development of table tennis in Canadian universities,” said club director Oscar del Rio in an email to The Varsity.
The club’s teams have performed remarkably well in the past. Representing their division in 2006 at the North American championship, the women’s squad dropped the championship in a 3-2 heartbreaker to Stanford to take second place, while the men’s team finished an impressive fifth. Two years later, the women’s team fell just short in the championship match, this time to Texas Wesleyan, while the men came in sixth.
The next Eastern Division tournament will be held on Feb. 6. As for UTTTC’s prospects, del Rio was coy in his prediction. “We still have hope of qualifying for the Nationals, although the competition will be tough,” he said.
