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Swarthmore to host 11 teams in Collegiate National Badminton Tournament during upcoming weekend

BY JOSH ABEL

In print | March 20, 2008

This coming weekend, March 21 – 23, Swarthmore will be hosting the Collegiate National Badminton Tournament in Tarble Gym for the tenth consecutive year.

The competitive action will begin on Saturday, March 22. From 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on that day, there will be a lot of exciting action, as the five events (women’s singles and doubles, men’s single’s and doubles and mixed doubles) get whittled down to four semifinalists.

Sunday will feature the semifinal and final rounds, followed by an awards ceremony. The competition is on both individual and team levels, as individual competitors will earn points for their school as they progress through their draws.

Hosting such an event is a major endeavor, as 11 schools and 112 players are expected to participate. However, Swarthmore’s badminton team is very excited to be hosting this grand finale to its season. “The whole team is really, really excited about the tournament this weekend,” Kim Kramer ’10 said. “I think our goal is to play the best that we can and to help run a successful tournament that we can be proud of … These are going to be some amazing matches,” she said.

Patricia Kelly ’08 is also very excited about the opportunity to showcase the event right here at Swarthmore. “As the least recognized varsity sport, it is nice to showcase our sport at its best and we hope that many Swatties will not only attend, but support us, making posters and just coming and making some noise,” she said.

The badminton team’s season has been a success so far this season, highlighted by back-to-back victories over Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College on Feb. 19 and Feb. 20, respectively. The latter was particularly sweet, as it avenged a previous loss to Bryn Mawr.

The Garnet hopes to keep riding that success through Nationals. “We expect that our team should be very competitive. We will work as hard as we can to make sure we come away with some of those [individual] medals and even a [team] trophy,” said Kelly.

And remember, as Kramer put it, “The Swat badminton loves having an audience.”

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