Turner Cup Finalist Kayley Leonard Wins Major Junior Award    
By Rob Dinerman

Dateline March 14th --- At the 2015 U. S. Junior Squash Championships in Princeton earlier this month, the DeRoy Sportsmanship Award was given to Greenwich Academy senior Kayley Leonard, who teamed up with Natalie Grainger to reach the final round of the WDSA Turner Cup tournament in late January. Leonard and Grainger had won four airtight matches in achieving their Cinderella run to the Turner Cup final at the Westchester Country Club --- 15-13 in the fourth over Aisling Blake and Joyce Davenport in their first-round qualifier, then an eleventh-hour charge after trailing 11-4 in the fifth game of their second-round qualifier against Fernanda Rocha and Amy Gross, then a five-game quarterfinal win over second seeds Meredeth Quick and Steph Hewitt, followed by a four-game semi over Tarsh McElhinny and Carrie Hastings in which Leonard/Grainger saved a double-game-point against them in the pivotal 15-14 third game --- before finally succumbing tin four games o the top-seeded successfully defending champions Narelle Krizek and Suzie Pierrepont, and throughout their perilous path, Leonard demonstrated a level of both equanimity and wisdom well beyond her tender years.
 
   The left-handed Leonard, who also partnered up with Pierrepont last March in a run to the semis of the 2014 U. S. National Doubles, has won seven Junior Championship Tour singles titles during the course of her junior career, displaying in the process the kind of commitment to sportsmanship and fair play that has earned her the admiration of her peers. She will conclude her junior career by representing the USA in the upcoming Junior World Team Championships in Egypt this summer before entering her freshman year at Harvard, the reigning national college team champion, in the fall.