HUMBER SPORTS

Mixed doubles pair Raymond Wong and Renee Yip won Humber’s first ever badminton national gold medal after beating the defending champions at Edmonton’s Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) last week.

Wong, a former national bronze medallist, and Yip, making her nationals debut, defeated last year’s champions Joey Vandervet and Sinead Cheah of NAIT in a nail biting semifinal match on Friday.

The two then routed Alberta’s Concordia College pair of Jake Perry and Grace Box in Saturday’s final.

The honour wasn’t handed to the Hawks, dropping two of their first three matches on Thursday.

But the two came into Friday with a new plan.

“Our confidence was a lot better on the second day, we thought of a game plan for each team and started to execute it all the way
through each match,” said Yip.

The pair won both of its matches on Friday morning beating Vancouver Island University and King’s College, before the afternoon semifinal, where the pair’s momentum put them over the top.

Assistant coach Mike Kopinak said the pair got stronger as the tournament went on.

“There was concern on Thursday over not moving on at all, so those early wins on Friday were big,” said Kopinak.

“We only wanted to win gold, and we started believing in ourselves, and knowing we could actually do it and really wanting it was what we needed,” said Yip.

Wong made his third straight appearance at nationals, where his experience proved to be vital.

“It helped, but I was still nervous before matches, once we started to play though I didn’t think about it,” said Wong.

“Ray is a master of learning as matches develop, and once we made it through to the semi’s he took his game to a new level,” said
Kopinak.

“Raymond’s really happy that he was finally able to win gold, but to be a national champion at only 18-years-old and in her first year like Renee, that’s really special,” said Kopinak.

Yip and Humber’s Charlie Lay were named all-Canadians, and Hawks head coach Lam Trinh received national coach of the year.