Drexel vs. Princeton vs. Rutgers

A couple of weeks ago the Drexel Badminton crew took a swell trip over to Princeton New Jersey for a friendly match.  Undoubtedly, the Drexel team performed amazingly well and took down both Princeton and Rutgers.

Thanks to Princeton for hosting and thanks to the nearby Wawa for serving delicious mac'n'cheese to me.

BEN

Collegiate Nationals 2010

This past weekend the Drexel team once again traveled to beautiful College Park, Maryland and successfully avoided all police forces, this time.  Competition was tough both from the east coast and west coast.  Berkeley ended up winning both the men's and women's divisions. Our women's team(sara) was only narrowly defeated.

Senior team member, Chern, gave an exciting last show at nationals this year. He recalled, "When I was a freshmen, I was sitting on the bleachers watching this [men's doubles final] match. Now, I am playing in it."  Good thing he had been drinking that Chernade.  Z also played well in his last nationals, winning the men's doubles (B) draw with Peter.

The rest of the team performed well.

MD (A) :: Yehan & Chern - 2nd Place
XD (A) :: Chern and Sara - Quarterfinals
MS (B) :: Peter - Quarterfinals
MD (B) :: Peter & Z - 1st Place
            Akhil and Ben - Semifinals



A list of official results can be found here. So here is to next year when Drexel will win.  We better start training.

Photos from: Me
                   Peter Teuben
                   Our Peter
(more coming soon)

BEN

National Capital Open 2010

AKHIL

What do you get when you take (3)long days + (-)leg room + (badminton)^10 + D + C??? The DC open of course!  The long weekend proved to be challenging yet fun.  A record number of participants came from all over the east coast to compete in Maryland this year and despite the stiff competition, Drexel gave a respectable performance.  A breakdown of the official results can be found here. Listed below are Drexel highlights. Nice job, team.

Akhil reached semi's in MS (B)
An reached semi's in WS (B)
Akhil and Heidi reached quarter's in XD (B)
Anna reached quarters in WS (C)
Sara reached quarters in WS (C)
Peter and Z reached quarters in MD (C)
Art and Diane reached quarters in XD (D)

There is a ton of media from this event. Below is what I have so far.  Be sure to check it all out, especially that "say" video.  If you have any photos or video from the event, please send them on over.

Pictures:
From Anna + Me
From Peter Tueben

Videos:
"SAAAAY" (thanks to Kevin)
DC Open on local TV
(more to come)

BEN

Look out, D.C.

The National Capitol Open is less than 3 days away.  Those of us lucky enough to be rewarded a spot in the draw will be departing this weekend for the University of Maryland.  This years event was flooded with over 300 entries and sadly, many players on our team were sanctioned to the wait list. Most of us, however, were lucky enough to gain entry into at least one event... tough luck, Aaron. This weekend will most likely be very fun and what better way to start it out than a 2 - 3 hour car ride!

Details for the DC Open, including the weather, can be found here.

It's going to be an intense weekend. Rest up!

BEN

New York, New York

This past saturday the DBT participated in a tri-meet in NYC against Columbia University and Marist College.  We all (except maybe Will) enjoyed some delicious mexican food after the match and toured the Columbia campus just enough to make us jealous of their surroundings. And Despite the snow, rain and wind, Peter and Sara managed to get us there and back safely. But more important than safety, we played pretty well.

Scores:
Drexel Men (won) v. Columbia : 6-3
Drexel Men (won) v. Marist : 9-0
Drexel Women (lost) v. Columbia : 1-8
Drexel Women (won) v. Marist : 9-0
Drexel Mixed (won) v. Columbia : 2-0
Drexel Mixed (tie) v. Marist : 1-1

Good job team!

AND in VK fashion I will be starting to post pictures from events on Picasa for you all to take a gander at. Click HERE and HERE to see the pictures from the NYC event.....
and HERE for pictures from the Mid-Atlantic Jr's Tournament.

BEN

Mid-Atlantic Classic Jrs Tournament

The MAC Juniors were this past weekend and I'm happy to report that Drexel won the team competition! The way it works is that each team selects five member to "count" for points.  Yehan, Peter, Chern, Z, and Akhil conquered all, beating out Penn(a close second).


And here are the highlights from individual and doubles competition:


Chern & Yehan - Won Men's Doubles
Peter & Z - Reached semi-finals in Men's Doubles
Akhil & Devin - Reached semi-finals in Men's Doubles

Yehan - Won Men's Singles
Akhil - Reached semi-finals in Men's Singles

Sara - Reached semi-finals in Women's Singles

Chern & Sara - reached quarter-finals in Mixed Doubles
Aaron & Swanna - Reached semi-finals in Mixed Doubles



Consolation--
Anna and Ta - Mixed Doubles finalists
Dan - Women Singles finalists




Good Job Team!


BEN

Women's Match at Bryn Mawr College

Fun Facts about Bryn Mawr:

1. It is one of the Seven Sister colleges

2. It's colors are yellow and white

3. Hillary Clinton, Emily Dickinson and Audry Hepburn are alumni

4. They were defeated by the Drexel Badminton ladies' team

Final score:  Drexel - 5     Bryn Mawr - 4

Way to go!

BEN

Penn & Potluck

First off, thanks to Penn for hosting the match and potluck dinner! I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time and even more sure that the food was delicious.

Also, congrats to Penn's men's, women's and mixed teams for coming out on top. At least we put up a good fight!

Noteworthy: Chern and Anna won in an exciting mixed doubles match, Sara White won the handicapped women's bracket, and Yehan defeated his opponent in a crazy intense single's match.

Check out more pics from the potluck at Penn's Gallery.

BEN

Le Badminton Tournament 2009

This coming weekend is the Drexel Badminton Club's Fall term tournament and team tryouts. We will have 6 courts and feather shuttles to play with! As a reminder, all people who are interested in the Drexel Team must play tryout. Below is the lowdown for the events:

LE BADMINTON TOURNAMENT (check out the attached flyer!)

Date: Sunday October 4th
Time: 12:00pm - 5:00 pm
Location: South Gym of the DAC
Type: Round Robin

- You will most likely play in 5 group brackets, so you will play at least 4 matches.
- The totaled score out of 2 games (no set), will be recorded
- The best teams from each bracket will advance to the final bracket
- There will be a consolation bracket, but it may be abbreviated due to time constraints

Registration:

- To register, Email drexelbc@gmail.com. You will receive an email form to fill out
- To play 1 event (either doubles or singles), the admission is $15
- To play 2 events (both doubles and singles), the admission is $25

Doubles:

- Teams can be mixed gender.

Prizes:

- ummm... not cash, but something much much better (of course)

TEAM TRYOUTS
- You must play in the tournament
- When you register, let us know you're trying out for the team
- Your admission for the first event is covered as long as you have joined Drexel Badminton Club
- We will be watching you play and let you know :)

Le JPEG

Makin' a career out of guest posting...

-VK

Change: count on it.

Well folks, it's been a fun ride. This will be my last official post as a club officer. What's the significance of that anyway?

I sincerely hope you've enjoyed what the badminton club has been able to offer you for the past year. Changes have come to us through the club sports council and we've done our best to run our club the best way we saw fit. I'd like to think that we've learned from our mistakes and that the club is on a path of determined improvement. If you have any comments regarding how the club/team is run, please feel free to let us know. You can email the club at drexelbc[at]gmail[dot]com at any time.

These kids are outta here. Courtesy of one Ben Pubusky.

Jeers and cheers to you all.

-VK

2010 Budget Allocation

Apologies for the usual delay. I'm still reeling from the official budget allocation for fiscal year 2010. While we tried to fight for more money, the bottom line is that the badminton club needs your support now more than ever. How much did we get this year? $6,865.36. About half of last year's budget.

The direct effect on you is still uncertain. We want the club to grow. We want the team to excel. But we can't do this alone.

You will see more fundraising activities from us this year so we can purchase enough shuttlecocks for your practices. We need to make sure our team members are making the best use of our funds when we send them to tournaments to represent Drexel. This won't be easy, but I think challenges will bring out the best in our new officers. As more news unfolds, we will bring it to you.

We'll figure something out.

-VK

Tri-meet with Rutgers and Princeton

Still chugging along on that one-post-per-week train.

This past Saturday, April 18th, 2009, Drexel Badminton headed to Rutgers University up in New Brunswick, NJ for a tri-meet against the host and Princeton University. If I were smart, I would have taken pictures of their beautiful campus, but for now, you'll have to take my word for it. There were students, real live human beings, on campus during the weekend enjoying outdoor activities and having loads of fun. Drexel... dream on.

Anyway, here are the results of our badminton matches:

Men's Team
Drexel vs. Rutgers: 9-0
Drexel vs. Princeton: 9-0

Women's Team
Drexel vs. Rutgers: 6-3
Drexel vs. Princeton: 3-6

Mixed Team
Drexel vs. Rutgers: 3-2

An impressive clean sweep from Drexel's men's team against our competitors. I fell on my goods during my singles match but it was clearly worth it.

Congratulations to Drexel and thank you to Rutgers and Princeton for a fantastic afternoon, especially to Rutgers for hosting us.

-VK

NYC Badminton Club Annual Tournament 2009 Results

New York, New York, Big city of dreams;
And everything in New York ain't always what it seems.

Who would've figured that Drexel Badminton would walk away from the NYC Badminton Club's annual tournament with 10 medals?

Here are two of them.

Held from March 27th - 29th, 2009 at John Bowne High School in Flushing, NY, this was their club's 13th annual tournament. To make things fun, half of the group travelled by car with Nisarg. The other half rode the Chinatown bus up to NYC, hopped on the subway, caught a bus, only to walk a fair amount to the actual gym. I also made the group walk about 3 miles to our hotel in Jamaica, NY, passing through a heavily Jewish neighborhood at roughly 1 in the morning. Good times.

Here are the Drexel Badminton team highlights:

• Yehan Ranasinghe - Division A - Men's Singles - Bronze
  
  
• Peter Thai & Zdravko Tyankov - Division B Consolations - Men's Doubles - Golds
• Xiang Mao & Sara White - Division B Consolations - Women's Doubles - Golds
  
  
• Vincent Kan & Artur Vieira - Division C Consolations - Men's Doubles - Golds
• Chunyin Li & Sara White - Division C Consolations - Mixed Doubles - Golds
• Artur Vieira - Division C Consolations - Mixed Doubles - Bronze

Some photos are here. The lighting was really orange and there wasn't a lot of space to shoot from.

And Yehan won 70 bucks. Cha-ching!

For some Grandmaster Flash lovin'...

-VK

Collegiate Nationals: A Fantastic Voyage

Slide, slide, slippity slide; I do what I do just to survive…

In a bid to stay chronologically relevant, I am posting the details of our trip to the 2009 Badminton Collegiate Nationals a mere 17 days after it ended. That’s only a postponement of 1/26th of a year, or so. That’s such a small fraction, I may well have just stepped off the plane yesterday!

An annual gathering of the nation’s most dedicated badminton players who happen to be undergraduate college students, this year’s tournament was hosted by Irvine Valley College in Irvine, CA from March 20th to 22nd, 2009. Yeah, we went to California to play badminton. Jealous? You should be.

We have risen.

Our journey has us trapped in those giant Pringles cans with wings for about 3 hours at a time. Departing from Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), we have a short layover in Houston, Texas at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). Well, it was scheduled to last about an hour, but extended to easily double that when our initial plane was found to have been malfunctioning mechanically. How naughty. Appropriately agitated and seated on a new plane, we finally take off for John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Orange County, California.

It’s pretty empty ‘cause it’s pretty late.

With not much time to practice on a Friday night, we grab our rental cars, check into our hotel rooms, and head out to gorge ourselves on Chinese buffet. We would easily burn off those calories the next day when most of the action would take place at Irvine Valley College’s gym. This is what we came here for. Not for the beautiful weather, flash cars, or sandy beaches, though there was plenty of that. No, we were here for domestic-class collegiate badminton.

Saturday arrives and we find ourselves on the courts awaiting our competition. I’m not sure how to write about our badminton matches except that West Coast players are formidable and relentless. Yehan played his Men’s Singles semifinals and finals matches on Sunday with his Drexel crew intensely cheering him on. And our support clearly worked. Yehan Ranasinghe became the 2009 Badminton Collegiate Nationals Men's Singles Champion. Drexel University placed 5th as a team.

Great sportsmanship from both players.

With the hard work over, we had some time to relax and enjoy ourselves at In-N-Out, the beach, Vietnamese restaurants and yogurt bars. Suffice to say, we partied with reckless abandon. (Hey, I don’t know who’s reading this thing.) We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the left coast and returned Monday evening to Philadelphia.

California, we’ll miss you.


The trip’s photo album is here.


And just in case you missed the reference to Coolio’s Fantastic Voyage…


-VK

Practice Schedule - Spring 2009

Location
South wing of DAC - 2 courts

Team Practice
Wednesday - 8:30pm to 10:00pm

Club Practice
Tuesday - 6:00pm to 9:00pm
Friday - 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Yonex Mavis 350 nylon shuttlecocks will be provided for use during club practice times. We encourage you to bring your own racquets. Racquets are also available at the equipment rental booth if you do not have your own.

Practice times are subject to change due to other events occurring at the DAC. We will attempt to notify you at least a day before any schedule changes.

Please remember to have fun.


-VK

Club Spotlight: US!

That's right.

We got some pixels dedicated to the Drexel Badminton team in the latest Drexel Club Sports weekly newsletter thanks to our phenomenal performance at recent tournaments.

Click to embiggen.

A pat on the back for us. 'Cause we're egotistical like that.

-VK

PA State Open 2009 Results

A little behind on my posts, but, as always, it’s worth the wait.

Who am I kidding…

Your Drexel Badminton team traveled to Reading, PA on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 for the 2009 PA State Open. It’s hosted by John Lim of Albright College, brother of our club’s academic advisor, Dr. Teck-Kah Lim.

This year, Drexel made a definitive statement by taking home the Collegiate Team trophy. With a 23-point margin over 2^nd place Swarthmore College, Drexel was declared the 2009 PA State Open’s Collegiate Team Champion.

Here are some Drexel team highlights:

• Yehan Ranasinghe – Division A – Men’s Singles – Runner-up
• Chern-Hooi Lim & Yehan Ranasinghe – Division A – Men’s Doubles – Champions
• Anna Luong & An Nguyen – Division A – Women’s Doubles – Runners-up
• Chern-Hooi Lim – Division B – Men’s Singles – Champion
• Zdravko Tyankov – Division C – Mixed Doubles – Runner-up
• Vincent Kan – Division C – Men’s Singles – Runner-up

Photos are uploaded here for your gleeful viewing pleasure.

We will be back next year to defend our title and we look forward to tougher competition next year from our fellow Pennsylvanian colleges and universities.

-VK

Collegiate Nationals: The Verdict

Aaand we're back.

This will be a quickie. Drexel Badminton placed 5th at the 2009 Badminton Collegiate Nationals tournament.

Oh, and some kid named Yehan won the Men's Singles event. He's pretty good at badminton.

The burger king.

More to come later.

-VK

Collegiate Nationals: WE GOT THIS

Hey, you. If you're going to Collegiate Nationals, then you already received an email from me. Look for it. Then read it. All of it.

If you have any questions or concerns at all about it, let us know ASAP.

In the meantime, study hard. Take your final exams hard. Wake up hard on Friday morning. Then play hard this weekend when we're in Irvine, California.

'Til then.

-VK

Drexel Badminton SkillZ: It's Over 9000

Chern vs. Chern
From Mid-Atlantic Juniors 2008.
Produced by Arturinho.

Drexel Badminton SkillZ: It's Over 9000


Final point. Artur takes the win.
Enjoy.

-VK