Exchange student sure knows how to Nguyen
The player in a bright blue and yellow shirt was hard to miss.
“That guy’s barely breaking a sweat,” said one of the onlookers to Wednesday’s city high school badminton meet at Crescent Heights.
Alas, it wasn’t for lack of effort. Hat High exchange student James Nguyen is just that much better than his competition at this level, his deft movements and precise shots emblematic of someone who’s played the sport a lot more than his opponents.
Nguyen, who’s from Vietnam, says he’s only been in town for two months. It shows in his lack of English language skills, but when it comes to a racket and shuttle he spoke volumes, handily taking top spot in the senior boys division. “I feel good,” he said. “My coach brought him in, he said ‘this guy, he’s looking to get to provincials,’” noted his opponent in the final, teammate David Archibald. “I was expecting to get crushed and I was crushed.”
Archibald was happy to win silver and also advance to zones, which take place in two weeks at Hat High and the Family Leisure Centre. He readily admits Nguyen — whose name is fittingly pronounced “win” — has definitely brought his own game to a new level.
“He’s the next level, he barely moves,” said Archibald. “He just knows where to place it, how to trick you into thinking you’re going one way, but he goes a different way and you don’t have a chance.”
Lots of other competitors will look to repeat Wednesday’s finishes at zones, which would get them through to provincials. As usual there was lots of representation from Hat High, Eagle Butte, McCoy and Crescent Heights athletes on the podium.
“The last couple tournaments we didn’t do that good, so we were hoping we’d do good,” said intermediate mixed doubles player Jenna Doyle of Eagle Butte. “Then we won our first game, we were pretty pumped. We just kept winning.”
Doyle and partner Riley Morse had played together in junior high, but took last year off before teaming back up as Grade 11’s. So far, so good. They beat Crescent Heights’ Lewis Benoy and Reese Gill in the city final — both teams move on to zones.
“I think we felt that today, that we can do this,” said Doyle. “We’ve really got good at playing corners.”
It was a different story for the top junior mixed team. Lexie Waldbauer had starred in junior high as a singles player, while Triston Duchscherer was used to doubles. Lexie’s clearly adapted well, no doubt with Triston helping here and there, as the Eagle Butte duo beat Courtney Rissling and Brent Folk of McCoy in their final.
“We just figured out how to position ourselves better, hitting lines on certain plays,” said Duchscherer.
In seniors, Sierra Zukowski beat teammate Courtney Lagasse of McCoy in the singles final, while Eagle Butte’s Katie Arnott and Trevor Mickey took mixed doubles gold over Hat High’s Preston Knutson and Karla Pinangay.
Intermediate finals saw Ty Jans (Eagle Butte) beat Irvin Magwali (Hat High) in boys singles, Emily Hudson (Hat High) go uncontested in girls singles, and Shelby Schmidt and Amer Karamanos (Eagle Butte) beat Anoushka Gaekwad and Martin Haugen (Crescent Heights) in girls doubles.
Other than mixed doubles, McCoy dominated the junior ranks. Deacon Hynes beat teammate Austin Berger in boys singles, Jordyn Fournier topped fellow Colt Marie Claire Tungpalan in girls singles, Jaiden Perry and Amber Gallup beat teammates Kaela Dyck and Grayce Doell in another all-McCoy final in girls doubles and Ryley Manz and Caleb Kinch of McCoy edged Hat High’s Sam Nygaard and Tony Nguyen in boys doubles.