Raiders look confidently to OFSAA
Knowing Eastern Commerce is new to badminton, Riverdale took the opportunity to work some of the kinks out of their strategy as they prepare for the city championships.
Four of eight matches — mixed doubles B, girls single, girls double A and B — were defaulted by the developing Saints roster. The four matches that did transpire turned out as wins for Riverdale.
Raiders coach Nancy Lum encouraged her charges to work on their flaws.
“They have their strengths, so when they are clearly the stronger team, I always try to tell them to work on their weaknesses,” Lum said. “So instead of smashing all the time I try to get them to do drop shots that they’ll need in their repertoire against strong teams.”
Taking both of his sets in the boys single match was Alan Zhu who downed Hussain M. Ali 21-17 and 21-18.
Boys doubles A Jason Trinh and Eric Ly over-powered Saad Akbar and Malik Mohammed 21-5, 21-8. The Raiders doubles B team with Edward Lam and Anthony Tran beat Mohammed Hamden Amer and Chris Chase 21-5, 21-4.
The final match, mixed doubles A, Teddy Tong and Stacy Lei easily won against Malik Anseb and Khanom Sumane 21-6, 21-6.
Though the Saints failed in all their sets, coach Jahanara Kamath said her team is eager to improve.
“Even though we did not win they come prepared to fight it out and play with whole heart,” she said. “Compared to earlier games, they’ve decided who should go A and who should B.”
Kamath pointed to their loss to Leaside as a turning point in the players quest for success.
“I found even though we lost as a team overall, the students had accepted the defeat courageously,” she said. “They have learned how to strategize for the next game and they are thinking positively.”
With 50 percent of the matches defaulted, one of Riverdale’s key players for the boys double A, Kent Guan, was idle. He and his partner Trinh are expected to qualify for OFSAA, Lum said.
Still, Guan admitted he’s optimistic Trinh and him will win their battles of the birdie.
“We’ve been playing for a while now,” Guan said. “I guess we’ve got good chemistry when we play together.”
The only threat to their dominance of the citys is the cast of Dr. Norman Bethune.
“It’s usually good competition with the Scarborough teams and there’s quite a few good club players in the North Region like Earl Haig,” Lum said. “We are always well represented when we go to the city championships.”