Badminton singles, doubles tourney set for Friday, Saturday
October 20, 2011 by Les Willsey, AZPreps365
Badminton's focuse shifts to individual singles and doubles state championships on Friday (Oct. 21) and Saturday (Oct. 22) at Independence High School.
While Xavier and Chaparral are battling it out for the team title, players from Gilbert and Mountain Pointe are the top singles and doubles seeds, respectively.
Top seed in singles, which begins Friday at 10:30 a.m., is Gilbert's Callie Branyan. The rest of the top eight singles seeds are No. 2 Chandler Begaye (Chandler); No. 3 Amandine Joannesse (Red Mountain); No. 4 Jessica Michael (Xavier); No. 5 Monique Vermillion (Millennium); No. 6 Kaelin Packer (Prescott); No. 7 Susan Tu (Desert Vista) and No. 8 Swetaleena Dash (Horizon).
Branyan finished on the state runner-up doubles team for Gilbert last year and Begay was on the fourth-place doubles team for Chandler. Michael placed third in singles last year.
The top-seeded team in doubles is Mountain Pointe's Kioyoko Hashimoto and Vashnari Kofa. Doubles competition begins Friday at 9 a.m.. The rest of the top eight doubles seeds are No. 2 Michelle Teichert and Tarina DeRito (Gilbert); No. 3 Courtney Foltz and Alex Hoffman (Chaparral), the defending state champs; No. 4 Madison Rosztoczy and Kalee Hunter (Millennium); No. 5 Surina Das and Tiffany Pariva (Hamilton); No. 6 Kalee Espericueta and Alisa Turkina (Sunnyslope); No. 7 Sabrina Martinez and Geneva Heinkel (Mountain Pointe) and No. 8 Emily Dahl and Chandler Andrews (Shadow Mountain).