Varsity Badminton finishes 3rd at the CISAA Championship
(Wednesday, May 22, 2019)
The Varsity Team headed east on the 401 at the bright and early time of 6:30 a.m. this morning as they journeyed to Trinity College School (TCS) to participate in the CISAA Championship Tournament. TCS’s ‘triple-gym’ is an excellent badminton facility and tournament players were treated to firm grip surfaces, high ceilings and the type of quality lighting where there is no problem picking out shuttles. The singles players got into action first and all three (1st – Christopher Chong, 2nd – Alexander Chow, 3rd – PJ Bujouves) secured first round victories. The second round, as expected, was tougher but both Chow and Chong were able to win, moving directly to semi-final matches. Bujouves, unfortunately, got caught up against a talented TCS player, losing in two tightly fought contests 21-19, 22-20. He would pick himself up and dust himself off, as he always does, to win the consolation side (5th place finish) of the bracket with victories over Pickering and DeLaSalle Colleges. The doubles pairings (1st – Sharavanan Kirupakaran, Justin Zhou, 2nd – Andy Wang, Dustin Yang) started a bit later, but also got off to good starts, benefitting from byes in the first round and then winning their second round matches to make the semi-finals.
At this point, the tournament draw started to bottleneck as many consolation side matches had to be played. After a lengthy break, all four semi-final matches involving UCC were played at the same time in the “Old” gym. It was difficult to follow all of the game action but there were some very good matches. Unfortunately, the Blues would finish 1-3 in these crucial fixtures, with only 1st doubles pairing Kirupakaran and Zhou winning (handily against their Royal St. George’s opponents). Chong fought hard against a Hong Kong national level player from St. Andrew’s and Alexander Chow lost a really tight match against his Crescent opponent by scores of 21-19, 21-17. The 3rd and 4th place fixtures were also really tough, with Chris Chong losing to his opponent from RSGC 21-16, 21-12 and Chow – who simply ran out of gas -- dropping a heartbreaker to his much older opponent from RSGC 15-21, 21-15, 21-18. 2nd doubles team Andy Wang and Dustin Yang fared better, beating Appleby in convincing fashion 21-14, 21-11 to win the bronze medal. Zhou and Kirupakaran, the sole finalists for UCC at the tournament, were overmatched in the gold medal fixture against their OBA ranked opponents from DeLaSalle College, and had to settle for silver.
In terms of team results, St. Andrew’s College finished first, winning its third consecutive CISAA Championship. Upstarts Crescent School finished second behind some excellent performances in the gold medal matches. UCC finished in a tie for third with rivals Royal St. George's. The Blues will take solace that they beat Crescent in both league matches in the head to head format (both tight 3-2 wins) as well as RSGC (4-1). The team is also very young (with two Year 8 and one Y9 starter), which bodes well for the future. It was an enjoyable team to coach that was comprised of a group of hard-working, talented and committed student-athletes. PJ Bujouves, the lone senior on the team, deserves special mention for his leadership and commitment to the program, competing at a high level throughout the challenging IB final examination period.
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The Varsity Team headed east on the 401 at the bright and early time of 6:30 a.m. this morning as they journeyed to Trinity College School (TCS) to participate in the CISAA Championship Tournament. TCS’s ‘triple-gym’ is an excellent badminton facility and tournament players were treated to firm grip surfaces, high ceilings and the type of quality lighting where there is no problem picking out shuttles. The singles players got into action first and all three (1st – Christopher Chong, 2nd – Alexander Chow, 3rd – PJ Bujouves) secured first round victories. The second round, as expected, was tougher but both Chow and Chong were able to win, moving directly to semi-final matches. Bujouves, unfortunately, got caught up against a talented TCS player, losing in two tightly fought contests 21-19, 22-20. He would pick himself up and dust himself off, as he always does, to win the consolation side (5th place finish) of the bracket with victories over Pickering and DeLaSalle Colleges. The doubles pairings (1st – Sharavanan Kirupakaran, Justin Zhou, 2nd – Andy Wang, Dustin Yang) started a bit later, but also got off to good starts, benefitting from byes in the first round and then winning their second round matches to make the semi-finals.
At this point, the tournament draw started to bottleneck as many consolation side matches had to be played. After a lengthy break, all four semi-final matches involving UCC were played at the same time in the “Old” gym. It was difficult to follow all of the game action but there were some very good matches. Unfortunately, the Blues would finish 1-3 in these crucial fixtures, with only 1st doubles pairing Kirupakaran and Zhou winning (handily against their Royal St. George’s opponents). Chong fought hard against a Hong Kong national level player from St. Andrew’s and Alexander Chow lost a really tight match against his Crescent opponent by scores of 21-19, 21-17. The 3rd and 4th place fixtures were also really tough, with Chris Chong losing to his opponent from RSGC 21-16, 21-12 and Chow – who simply ran out of gas -- dropping a heartbreaker to his much older opponent from RSGC 15-21, 21-15, 21-18. 2nd doubles team Andy Wang and Dustin Yang fared better, beating Appleby in convincing fashion 21-14, 21-11 to win the bronze medal. Zhou and Kirupakaran, the sole finalists for UCC at the tournament, were overmatched in the gold medal fixture against their OBA ranked opponents from DeLaSalle College, and had to settle for silver.
In terms of team results, St. Andrew’s College finished first, winning its third consecutive CISAA Championship. Upstarts Crescent School finished second behind some excellent performances in the gold medal matches. UCC finished in a tie for third with rivals Royal St. George's. The Blues will take solace that they beat Crescent in both league matches in the head to head format (both tight 3-2 wins) as well as RSGC (4-1). The team is also very young (with two Year 8 and one Y9 starter), which bodes well for the future. It was an enjoyable team to coach that was comprised of a group of hard-working, talented and committed student-athletes. PJ Bujouves, the lone senior on the team, deserves special mention for his leadership and commitment to the program, competing at a high level throughout the challenging IB final examination period.
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