NAIT to send seven players to badminton nationals

February 19, 2009

The NAIT Ooks, winners of their first Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference team badminton title since 1993, will take seven players to the national championships at Humber College in Toronto on March 5-7.

The NAIT roster includes men's and women's singles champs Dan Kai and Sun Yang and mixed doubles champs Joey Vandervet and Sinead Cheah.

Two Concordia Thunder doubles teams - Jon Vandervet and Alan Chow among the men, Reshma Bhambani and Grace Box in women's competition - also won ACAC titles to qualify for the national event that begins March 5th.

Each of the four associations - British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Atlantic -- compete in the national finals, and are designated a spot for a team, while the host association is granted an additional team. A sixth wild-card team slot is given to one of the three remaining associations, as decided by the badminton convenors of the associations and the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association. This season, the honour went to Alberta.

As a result singles silver medallist Ogul Kaltakci and mixed doubles bronze medallists Jonathan Change and Natalie Neumann of NAIT will make the trip to nationals as part of the wild-card team.

Joining them on the squad are singles player Jie Sim of Concordia and two Mount Royal College doubles teams: Darren Hong and Benson Chan in the men's bracket and Lindsay Bell and Ashley Dixon on the women's side.

Kaltakci's gruelling two-set victory over ACAC player-of-the-year Bhambani in women's singles was a major factor in NAIT's team triumph. She won the first set 25-23 and was clearly superior in capturing the decisive set 21-14.

NAIT and Concordia went on to split men's and women's doubles, giving the Ooks a 5-3 team victory.

Mount Royal grabbed its third consecutive ACAC silver medal, downing the host Red Deer College teams 5-3.