The NAIT Ooks badminton team is set to compete at the 2019 CCAA Badminton National Championships
TRURO, N.S. - The NAIT Ooks badminton team is set to compete at the 2019 CCAA National Badminton Championships beginning Thursday Mar.7th.
The Ooks have managed to qualify all ten players to compete at the CCAA Championships this weekend, which is the more than any of the other competing schools. "I'm excited that we were able to qualify ten out of a possible ten players," said Ooks' head coach Sinead Cheah. "I am optimistic that we can medal in all events and possibly win at least one gold in women's singles with Eyota (Kwan), if not another in women's doubles or men's doubles. The doubles events are always competitive and with the parity of the league this year it's going to be an exciting competition."
The tournament begin as a round robin on Thursday. All six teams play each other and the top four teams will advance to the semifinals on Friday. From there the gold and bronze medal matches are determined for Saturday.
The Ooks are coming off a successful season of conference play captured three gold and four silver medals at the ACAC Championships. They also got silver in the team event, which ended their eight-year streak of NAIT gold medals. The NAIT Ooks also had several players selected to the ACAC All-Conference team, Eyota Kwan, Connie Juang, Samantha Hsu, and Ryo Kuramochi were selected to the female all-conference team. Tyler Walsh and John Li were selected to the male team.
Sam Nahrgang, NAIT Athletics - snahrgang@nait.ca - 780-471-7606