R.F. Staples is sending seven badminton players to the zone tournament in Edmonton this Wednesday.
Each of the seven athletes earned their spot at zones after performing well at the April 18 conference tournament held at both the Westlock Rotary Spirit Centre and R.F. Staples.
“It was a very good tournament,” said coach Jon Radke.
Advancing to zones are Evan Woynorowski (intermediate boys singles), Kayla Olsen (intermediate girls singles), Conne Lategan (intermediate girls singles), Ryan Turner (senior boys singles), Jamie Verville (senior girls singles) and Amelia Kulmatyski and Brandi Hensch (intermediate girls doubles).
All seven student athletes will be competing at the Saville Community Sports Centre in Edmonton on April 24.
Radke said there were five Grade 12 students who narrowly missed qualifying for zones in their last year of high school competition.
Christine Ashton and Darrian Strehlau in girls doubles, Chad Cloutier and Conrad Hertz-Kleptow in boys doubles and Hannah Gough in girls singles all came up a win short of advancing to zones.
“These five all worked so hard this year and all three coaches for our team feel terrible that they came just short of going to zones, especially because they are all graduating this year,” Radke said.
All told, there were 29 athletes on the R.F. Staples team competing for a chance to compete in Edmonton.
Overall, a total of 135 competitors from eight schools came to Westlock for the conference tournament.
A fourth-place finish for the intermediate mixed doubles team of Dusty Halfe and Denise Sturkenboom was the best result for St. Mary’s eight-member badminton team at the Westlock conference tournament, said coach Darcy Romanuik.
The rest of the team finished right around the .500 mark during the round robin, Romanuik said.
In all, St. Mary sent two mixed doubles teams, one boys doubles team and two boys singles competitors.
While some students may not have performed up to their own expectations, he said what ultimately mattered was that they went out onto the court and competed to the beset of their abilities.
“As long as the kids tried their best, we did fine,” he said.
And try their best they did, he said, adding he recognizes it’s difficult to advance to zones out of the conference because there are many strong athletes at other schools.
Some of the St. Mary athletes were on their game, while others weren’t, but Romanuik said that kind of thing happens in sports.
“We had fun,” he said. “It was a good day.”
