ACAA Badminton Championship 2021-22
Passion. Relentlessness. Intelligence. Discipline. Execution.
On February 26th and 27th all the above was on display as the Mount Allison Mounties Varsity Badminton Team took the courts at the ACAA Championships and CCAA National Qualifiers.
The weekend began with championships on Saturday, in which the league made way for a new and exciting team tie event. Representing players for the event:
- Women’s Singles - Lindsay Murray
- Men’s Singles - Tony Nguyen
- Women’s Doubles - Mintra Taylor/Sophie Geis
- Men’s Doubles - Ben Broadbent/Jacob Lamothe
- Mixed Doubles - Brianna Warwick/Josef Gonzalez
In a full team effort, the Mounties stormed out of the gate early, sweeping the University Sainte Anne Badminton Team in all 5 events, which consisted of straight 2 set dominations by all the aforementioned players in their respective categories.
For the second team tie event, the Mounties faced a tougher Dalhousie Agricultural Centre Team, but still managed to pull out the victory by a winning all three doubles and women’s singles categories. Successfully achieving 4 out of 5 events.
Rounding out the day, the Mounties had their biggest challenge of the day against the University Kings College. After an extremely competitive 5 matches, the Mounties managed to secure Women’s Doubles, Taylor/Geis, with a convincing win over UKC in two straight sets. The Mounties would then go on to drop the remaining 4 events in close matches. Good enough to secure second in ACAA.
After a good night’s rest, the Mounties were back in action Sunday morning for the National Qualifying Event. Similarly to the Championships, Sunday saw a new format to increase the level of competition through a round robin for all three doubles categories, followed by a single elimination Men’s and Women’s single elimination draw made up of the unsuccessful doubles team players or players who opted out of all doubles events in order to play only singles.
Representing teams:
Women’s Doubles: Lindsay Murray/Amber Solomon
Women’s Doubles: Brianna Warwick/Taryn Greco
Men’s Doubles: Jacob Lamothe/Ben Broadbent
Mixed Doubles: Josef Gonzalez/Mintra Taylor
Men’s Singles: Tony Nguyen
Starting with the largest round robin of the day, the MTA Ladies Doubles Teams took stage against four other pairings from around the league. Warwick and Greco tore up the competition, in their first competitive season on the ACAA circuit, and came out on top of the three-set performance in what was deemed ‘the game of the day’ to secure their spot as the second representing ACAA team to qualify for Nationals. Through many other close matches, including another three-set nail bitter this time against each other with Murray/Solomon, also in their first competitive ACAA seasons, edging out the victory to secure their first team ACAA seed. Both the Mounties Ladies Doubles Teams came out on top of the event, successfully filling out both ACAA Women’s Doubles roster spots and punching their tickets to the CCAA national event.
Next up, in the Men’s Doubles Qualifiers, saw the Mounties pairing go 2-2 in their round robin, falling just short of qualifying for the second ACAA seed, against strong Dal AC and UKC teams.
Rounding out the double’s events, the Mounties Mixed Team, Gonzalez/Taylor put together a strong performance in their three games, posting a 2-1 record to lock in their seats to compete at their second CCAA national competition in three years.
Once the dust settled from all the doubles events, the remaining eligible players, Lamothe and Broadbent, joined Nguyen in attempts to qualify for one of two singles seeds for the National event. With all three posting solid performances, Nguyen and Lamothe came the closest to securing spots by making it to the semifinals, however ultimately lost out to the two UKC players.
In summary, the Mounties had a very successful showing. Solidifying second in the ACAA and sending the above mentioned 6 players to represent Mount Allison University and the ACAA at the CCAA National Championships. Congratulations to the Mounties and we wish great success to the players advancing to the National Competition from March 16th through 19th, 2022.
Mountie Pride.