Team BC at the Western Canada Team Championships, January 13, 14, & 15, 2012, Winnipeg Winter Club, Manitoba.
BC was victorious in the U14/U16 combined team event defeating Alberta, in the Gold Medal Match.
Representing BC in the U14's were Jeffrey So, Jack Lin, Kylie Cheng, Jenna Wong, and Samantha Zheng. The U16 team members were Christie Choy, Jasmine Li, James Ho and Calvin Che! The coach was Harry Pan from Ace Badminton Club and the manager was Cindy Simpson.
The team looked very smart at the event in clothing provided by Badminton BC (a vest) and the event (a T-shirt with the event logo). Black Knight also provided the team with a t-shirt and a competition shirt with names, country and Team BC on the back. Our thanks to each of these organizations for making our team look so professional on the court!
The format of the event was round robin with 2 singles in each age category for males and females. The singles event was ranked 1 and 2 and once we declared our singles players, we had to stay with that. The events involving females we were able to change in the U14 as we had 3 players.
The qualifying event was a full round robin and we easily defeated Manitoba 2, Manitoba 1 and Saskatchewan with strong performances by all including our youngest player Samantha Zheng who won all of her matches in singles, doubles and mixed.
On Saturday afternoon, our fourth tie of the event, we played Alberta. By this time, travel, change of climate, different food and time began to catch up to us. However, the U14's despite strong play and close losses ended the tie 3 - 4. The U16's knew they had to work hard and did so winning the tie 4 - 3 which meant that we were tied with Alberta overall 7 - 7 and into the Sunday gold medal match.
We had a pretty restful remainder of the day and on Sunday am, they were ready to go.
The format is such that two events were played at one time. Jeffrey So and Jack Lin set us up for the start of success! Although Jeffrey had lost to Byron Holcek of AB in singles the day before, he was on fire, focussed and fought to win his three game match. On the next court was Jack Lin working hard for every point and although he lost the match 20-22 in the second game he demonstrated a fighting spirit which carried over to the girls. Kylie Cheng literally flew about the court defeating her opponent. Jenna had a very tall opponent in Monica Cowper to whom she had lost the previous day. In this round, Jenna was on task and business like. She won in the third game. After the match, she said that was the best she had played and she surprised herself as to how well she moved about the court!
Next the U16 men took to the courts. Calvin Che in our #1 position played Ty Lindeman. On Saturday, Calvin lost to Ty in three. Sunday was a different story, Calvin came out following his game plan and won in two. Meanwhile on the next court, James was quickly winning his match. These two also set the tone for the U16's and the team. The women took to the courts for their singles. Jamine Li had a tough match with Alberta's no. 1 and although she lost both matches her scores, movement and shots were much better on Sunday. Christie Choy easily won her singles as well.
The doubles were next. The U14 team of Jeffrey and Jack avenged their Saturday loss to Alberta with a strong win over the same team. The girl's team team repeated their win from the day before. The U16 girls of Christie and Jasmine had lost a three game tough match the day prior but on Saturday, they were victorious in another three game match pulling out the win 22- 20 in the third! The U16 boys did not fare as well, losing to the team they had defeated the day before in three in a very close match.
Onto the mixed! One of the longest matches on Saturday was the U16 mixed that Kylie Cheng and Jeffrey So played against AB prevailing in three, 21 - 17. Sunday was a different story. This focussed confident pair, playing a combination of mixed and doubles, defeated the same Alberta pair convincingly. The U16 team of Christie Choy and James Ho had a very tough match on Saturday winning 25 - 23, 21 - 16 and repeated the win on Sunday with similar scores of 21 - 15, 23 - 21.
We finished the event with a team score of 11 - 3. Broken down the contribution to the final medal results were U14, 6 - 1 and U16, 5 - 2.
This event was well run by Ryan Giesbrecht, the Executive Director of the Manitoba Badminton Association and hosted by Archie Chawla and the Winnipeg Winter Club.
Thanks to all the parents who welcomed us home yesterday at YVR with hugs, kisses, flowers and candy!
Coach Harry Pan, who did a wonderful job of coaching the players, and I were very proud of the way our players behaved, represented our province and performed the whole weekend!
For full event results go to Tournament Software at: 2012 Western Canadian Team Championships
Respectfully submitted,
Cindy Simpson
Team Manager,
Western Canada Team Championship Team!
