2012 HOLIDAY FUN BADMINTON BOWL

Naren Koka

Dec 1, AZBC, Mesa...

The 2012 Holiday Fun Badminton Bowl was a raging success and lived up to its name! We set up a bar-b-q grill, tables, chairs and additional food tables outside along with a sponsorship tent by Russell Nelson and VERVE, to go with a full day of great badminton play at the Arizona Badminton Center. VERVE provided special participant give-aways and prizes for the winners and runners-up to go along with additional prizes from Warren Mee, Mike Hilliard, and the AZBC. The tournament was formatted to be extra fun with divisions for beginners, intermediate and advanced in events including 1/2 court singles, regular men's and women's doubles, and a "mixed-up" doubles.

Playing just one 7-point game for each match in the 1/2 court singles, 48 players competed in four divisions with consolation play. In just over an hour the champions were determined: Anton Kentjana in the Open Men's, Chris Mann in the Intermediate Men's, Liz Aronsohn in the Open Women's, and Rachel Price in the Intermediate Women's.

In the regular doubles full rally scoring matches in six different divisions were held with lots of hard-fought competition. The finals were: Open Women- Liz Aronsohn/Courtney Foltz def. Chandler Begay/Nga Le, 21-16, 21-18. Intermediate Women- Rachel Price/Valerie Rozon def. Brianna Carter/Emily Tobler, 21-9, 21-8. Beginner Women- Danielle Torres/Patty Willis def. Sidney Arohsohn/Martin Eslava, 21-12, 21-11. Open Men- Bui Hoang/Chin Khor def. Guy Chadwick/Toto Guhathakurta, 21-13, 21-16. Intermediate Men- Heiwei Lu/Shuhong Liu def. Albert Sue/Sherry Yuan, 14-21, 21-19, 21-18. Beginner Men- Roger Goettl/Clement Singarajah def. Garin Chadwick/Alyssa Litwin, 21-19, 22-20.

In the "Mixed-Up" Doubles 24 players were picked out of a hat to form 12 teams playing one game matches to 21 points rally scoring. Bui Hoang/Sherry Yuan def. Doug Towne/Marsha Morris 21-11 in the finals. Chris Hsieh/Courtney Foltz def. David Levin/Lan Xu in the consolation finals, 21-17.

In addition to the competition prizes, a special recognition was given to Naren Koka as the 2012 Hank Anderssohn Memorial Eagle Award recipient.