After another ACAA league championship win this year, the University of King’s College badminton team is sending 7 players to Edmonton to compete in the national tournament.
Editor’s note: this video was produced in collaboration with Peninsula U-Sport, a new website started by King’s students covering Halifax university sport. Find more of their coverage here.
“For that tournament, we definitely expected to come out on top,” said UKC mixed-doubles player Jack Ronahan. “We had a good first few tournaments of the year before we got shut down from COVID, where we felt like we dominated pretty much every tournament this year so we went in with pretty high expectations.”
The Blue Devils won 13 out of a possible 15 matchups to claim their fourth league championship in as many years.
The nine-player team will take their skills to Edmonton next week in hopes of collecting some more hardware, this time, a National Championship.
“For nationals, we definitely expected to send mostly all of our players, we have nine players on the team right now and we were looking to send at least seven,” Ronahan said.
A record seven King’s players will represent the ACAA league when they travel to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology for a three-day tournament starting March 17th.
“We ramped up [training] about a week ago, and then I believe starting today we are going to start to cool things down and work on our shots so we can keep the feel but not risk any injuries,” Ronahan added.
The King’sbadminton program continues to turn heads each season, as four Atlantic championships in as many years are making their court the place to play for young players.
Team head coach Sam White noted the significance of building young players from the ground up over their time at King’s.
“A big part of (our success) has been recruiting, we have honestly just found really good players and drawn them to King’s and from there we have just tried to make marginal improvements for everyone. We have brought a few players in, and a few have been built from the ground up. We have good players that can also help coach so it helps the team as a whole,” he said.
Ronahan noted the convenience of allowing Dalhousie students the opportunity to play in King’s colours, as it opens up the door to many more eligible players who want to try out for the team.
The CCAA Badminton National Championships will begin on March 17 and will be streamed online via the Dalhousie AC Rams YouTube page.