Local badminton sensation Michelle Kozlowskyj made the most of her one and only trip to the CCAA (Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association) nationals.

In her final year of eligibility and making a return to the Collège Boréal Vipères program, where she started, the graduate of Ecole secondaire catholique Sacré-Coeur partnered with Frédéric Houle from Elliot Lake, capturing bronze in mixed doubles play over the weekend in Edmonton.

In reaching the podium at the 2022 CCAA Badminton Championships hosted at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), Kozlowskyj and Houle made history in Sudbury, becoming the first ever Canadian medal winners since the inception of Collège Boréal more than twenty years ago.

A tough schedule out of the gate forced the local tandem to keep their wits about them, dropping their first two games of the event to the OCAA championship team from Humber (Airi Moromisato/Sirapob Kongubon - 8-21, 15-21) as well as the ACAA gold medal winners from University of King's College in Halifax (Jack Ronahan/Anna Gillies - 22-24, 17-21).

Kozlowskyj and Houle closed out day one of competition on a winning note, taking down ACAC #2 from the host school (Shivansh Shivansh/Moominah Ali) 21-7, 21-10, and kept right on rolling into day two.

Victories over Davis Wong/Ivy Ung of NAIT (ACAC champs - 21-14, 21-23, 21-14) and Mintra Taylor/Josef Gonzalez of Mount Allison (ACAA #2 - 21-14, 21-16) was enough to give the pride of the Vipères third place in the six team pool.

A second battle with Ronahan and Gillies would go the way of the silver medal winners, 21-18, 21-11, with the Boréal pair having one last shot to return home with some hardware.

The rematch with Wong and Ung proved equally as close, again going to a third set as Kozlowskyj and Houle prevailed 17-21, 21-15, 21-11.