2024 STATE CHAMPIONS – GWSC Senior ‘Mixed’ Badminton

Our golden run of sporting success at States has continued with a third GWSC team taking home a State Title! Congratulations to our GWSC ‘Senior Mixed’ Badminton Team (Yuhao, Sarah, Adam, Adrian, Justin & Ivan) who are the 2024 ‘School Sport Victoria’ Senior Boys/Mixed Badminton State Champions!

Our most experienced #Glenny’GOOD’minton team began proceedings against Notre Dame College (Shepparton) and encountered a very enthusiastic opponent. In spite of this, our GWSC team took out this first pool game six sets to love. It was then onwards to Maribyrnong Sports Academy, who were touted by many around MSAC as the team to beat prior to the start of the tournament. So that’s just what we did….we went out on court and played some of the best badminton ever seen at MSAC, taking out the match 4 sets to 2. You could literally hear a pin drop across MSAC when the other teams realised that GWSC had overcome MSA. Our final pool game was against Leongatha Secondary College, who offered little resistance as our more experienced players raced through their matches to secure top spot in our pool with a dominant 6 sets to love victory. 

This pitted us against Balwyn High School in the State Semi Finals, a school we had already knocked out of the competition during the Eastern Metropolitan Region Finals. However, it soon felt a little like Groundhog Day, as our #Glenny‘GOOD’minton crew took down Balwyn 5 sets to 1 in a calm and controlled fashion. All of our team then watched on intently as the second Semi Final was being completed on the neighbouring two courts. Nossal High School had taken a lead of 3 sets to 1 over Maribyrnong Sports Academy following their singles matches, but both of the doubles encounters went right down to the wire. Eventually, the first pairing from Nossal secured a 21-18 victory, to give them an unassailable lead and entry into the Grand Final.

A sizeable throng gathered around show courts 1-4 in preparation for the start of the ‘SSV’ Senior Boys/Mixed State Badminton Final. All four singles matches were played concurrently, meaning our student coaches had to move frequently from court to court to pass on their expertise and encouragement fleetingly. However, in the blink of an eye, Adam had us one up on Nossal after a strong showing in his singles. Sarah followed suit soon after with a dominant display to double our lead after the completion of two singles rubbers. Yuhao played an incredible match against the number one ranked player in the competition, testing him all throughout their clash and securing many valuable points for our team. Adrian then took our lead and built upon it, with a classic display of attacking badminton. Moving into the doubles with a 3 to 1 buffer, our pair of pairs felt confident that they could secure the State Championship  with one final win. Yuhao and Adrian were on from the very first point of their finals encounter, racing away to a nine point lead before their counterparts from Nossal staged a minor fight back. It was already too little too late though for the Nossal pairing, as our GWSC players and their student coaches all stormed the court when Yuhao ‘s final smash caught the line, securing the crucial fourth and final set. The jubilant celebrations were something to behold and will live on in our memories for some time to come…..

We would like to send out a massive thank-you to our student coaches – Jamie, Nicholas, Dorothy & Juan – who supported our State Championship winning side so very well throughout the entire badminton program this year.

Thanks also to Miss Ellyce Trinh, our awesome Glenny Alumni Coach, and our Glenny ‘GOOD’minton team mascot, Pinkachu! You both have an enormous impact on our Glenny badminton teams and provide so much positivity and belief to all of our players, in addition to your very yummy home baked treats!

Shout out also to Mrs Carla Gagliardi and Mr Mark Robinson who both helped supervise our ‘GWSC Senior ‘Mixed’ Badminton’ team throughout their ten week training program and also on the day of the ‘SSV’ State Championships at MSAC, whilst also barracking for #TeamGlenny during each hard-fought match along the way.