THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2008
Huskies Lead Locals To State Finals
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Sports
Nearly 200 of the state's best badminton players will be at the state IHSA finals this week in downstate Charleston.
Twenty-five of them will be from seven of the Journal area's high schools.
Among the 25 are several players who probably will be among the top seeds at this year's finals, which will be held at Lantz Arena on the campus of Eastern Illinois University. First round state matches begin at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday, May 8). Championship matches will be held Saturday afternoon.
Hersey leads area schools with all six of its state tourney players making it through to state. Glenbrook South qualified five, Wheeling and Prospect 4 each, while Elk Grove, Conant, and Rolling Meadows qualified 2 each.
Hersey won its own sectional with a dominant, 18-point performance, as the Huskies validated their recent second place finish in the Mid Suburban League. Hailey Miller and Meagan Matias finished 1-2 in singles last week at the sectional, and Huskie doubles teams of Katie Meyer and Stephanie Yang and Jillian Cabrera and Ashley Thomas also won the top two sectional spots.
Miller defeated Matias for the sectional title, and a favorable seed at state, by scores of 21-13, 21-11. Meyer and Yang outlasted Cabrera and Thomas in doubles, 22-20, 17-21, 21-11, in a marathon match.
Prospect cleaned up the rest of the state qualifying berths at Hersey by taking second as a team. (10.5 points). Qualifying Knights were Ada Krzywicka and Stephanie O'Connor 3rd and 4th, respectively, in singles, and Julie Provenza and Lindsay Miller third in doubles.
(The top four finishers in singles and doubles at a sectional make it to state).
Wheeling also qualified four at its sectional. Ashley Lepcin, who lost to Jenna Langhorst of Fremd for the MSL title, won the sectional with a grueling, come-from-behind 13-21, 21-17, 23-21 win over Karolina Walker of Palatine. (See separate story). Taking the final two singles qualifying places were Karolina Sabaliauskaite of Wheeling, and Klara Schroederus of Glenbrook South.
In doubles at Wheeling, the Wildcat number-two doubles team of Shannen Chechang and Sakina Khan finished third to advance, and two Glenbrook South teams - Evelyn Chou and Alex Winans and Leslie Jacob and Kelli Takagi - finished second and fourth, respectively, to make it to state.
At Willowbrook, Elk Grove's Kinjal Patel and Ripple Patel won fourth place in doubles to advance. They lost the third place match to a Schaumburg pair, 21-15, 21-17.
At Glenbard West, the Conant doubles pair of Holly Anderson and Larissa Binkus soared to second place and qualified. They dropped their final match to a Glenbard West pair, 21-16, 21-15.Finally, at Evanston, the Rolling Meadows doubles team of Francesca Himelman and Melissa Heller won their third place match over an Evanston pair, 21-12, 19-21, 21-16, to advance.