About 100 to 120 badminton players from around Mountain View County attended the Chinook's Edge South Athletic Association badminton tournament at the Ralph Klein Centre on Wednesday.
High school aged players from Grades 10 through 12 attended the tournament which acted as a tune-up for the South Central zone tournament which was to take place today in Airdrie. A total of nine players from OHS competed at the tournament, while 18 players attended from Olds Koinonia Christian School.
Lindsay Worrall and Jaimee Sheehan of Olds Koinonia Christian School placed first in the intermediate girls doubles while Chelsea Parrott and Jesse Rooks, also of OKCS, placed first in junior mixed doubles. Alison Rempel and Julie Palin of OKCS claimed the senior girls doubles title, while Curtis Cordell and Lance Parrott of OKCS claimed the senior boys doubles title. Sara Odersky of OHS placed first in senior girls singles.
Ken Terpstra, badminton coach at OKCS, said the goal this season was to get as many students out to badminton practices as possible. Being relatively successful at that led to some good results at the OHS tournament.
“We really pushed hard to get kids out. We noticed in the county that the numbers were down in the whole county, so for our school we thought we'd really push to get kids out,” he said.
“I'd like to see if I could get a couple of kids to provincials if I can. We haven't really sent kids to provincials much, so it would be nice to send a couple,” he said.
Because the basketball season runs so long and spring break must also be accounted for, Ron Miller, the badminton coach at OHS, said the season is extremely compressed, but that players had been practising four days per week for the past while in the lead-up to last week's tournament.
“What we do in Olds here is we practise (four days per week) … and we make it optional for the students to be here two out of those four days. Some students will show up all four days, other students will show up two, but they have to be here at least two times a week to qualify for the county tournament here,” Miller said.
In the team competition, OKCS topped the senior division while OHS placed fifth. OKCS placed third in the junior division while OHS placed fifth. OKCS placed fourth in the intermediate division while OHS placed fifth.
The provincial tournament will be in Grimshaw from May 2 to May 4.
" I'd like to see if I could get a couple kids to provincials if I can. We've haven't really sent kids to provincials much, so it would be nice to send a couple."Ken Terpstra, coach, OKCS badminton team
