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.
