Myers Badminton takes home medals in two tournaments

By Nikki Jamieson
Taber Times
njamieson@tabertimes.com

W.R. Myers took the ‘bad’ out of badminton, having won medals in both zones and provincials this past weekend.

In zones in Medicine Hat on Friday, May 6, students Christian Manahan and Sophie Simek took home bronze in the grade 9 mixed doubles.

For the tier 2 Provincial Championships in Edmonton over the past weekend, grade 10 students Shantelle Bennett and Dakota Huddleston won gold in Junior Mixed-Doubles on the B-side, after having a rocky start.

“They were in a tough pool,” said Darryl Bennett, badminton coach at W.R. Myers. “They lost their matches the first day, and they were all going to three games, and they were losing by two points on the third game… Then they ended up on the B-side and they won all the games on the B-side on Saturday, and that gave them the gold medal.”

Despite this, they held up against some of the top teams in the league.

“They were in competition with kids that would go on to junior nationals,”said Bennett. “Normally, the junior nationals is held the same time as high school provincials, so you never see the top competitors that go to junior nationals. But this year was different, so the junior national teams were using provincials as a warm up.”

“So all the teams were fairly closely matched.”