Many of southeast Saskatchewan’s top young badminton players were at the Midale Central School on Saturday for the South East District Athletics Association’s junior district west playdowns.
Students from numerous southeast Saskatchewan elementary and high schools competed at the tournament. Among those entered were Grade 9s at the Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS), and young people from three Estevan elementary schools: Hillcrest, Pleasantdale and Westview.
Athletes from Arcola, Bienfait Weldon, Gladmar, Lampman, Pangman, Radville, Yellow Grass and Weyburn Comprehensive School (WCS) also competed in Midale.
The east playdowns took place in Moosomin.
Two entries from ECS came home with gold medals. In boys’ singles, Oakley Stewart finished in top spot, as he defeated Jayke Smolinski from WCS in the gold medal game.
And in mixed doubles, Abby Hanson and Jordan Gillingham defeated an entry from Yellow Grass in the final.
Also, Sarah Dacuycuy from ECS took home silver in the girls singles event. She lost to Madison Greenwood of Lampman in the final.
The boys doubles final and the girls double final featured showdowns that involved teams from Weyburn.
The tournament was part of a successful weekend for ECS badminton competitors. The senior team was in Weyburn for the regional high school competition, and both teams advanced to provincials, which will also be in Weyburn on May 13.
A round-robin was used to determine the athletes who would move on from regionals to provincials, with the top two teams in each division advancing. All matches were contested using a best-of-three format.
Sage Dayman reached the provincial tournament in the boys division by finishing second with a 4-1 record. He opened the tournament with four straight victories, as he defeated opponents from Weyburn, Kipling, Sturgis and Whitewood. His four victories came in straight sets.
His only loss was a 2-1 decision against Yorkton Regional High School in his final game.
The team of John Sasi and Sammy Wade will be competing in mixed doubles. They opened with a 2-0 victory over Carnduff, but then they lost 2-1 to Kipling. A 2-1 win over Invermay and a 2-0 victory over Kipling followed, but then they lost 2-0 to Melville in their final round-robin game.
Estevan and Carnduff finished tied for second with 3-2 records, but the Elecs received the provincial birth because they won the round-robin game.
The Elecs coaches are Sheena Summers, Marika Ehrhardt and Kevin Daoust.
