On May 15 and 16 the Student Recreation Center at Lantz Arena was turned into the location for the 2008-2009 IHSA Girls Badminton State Finals.

Eastern has hosted the tournament for four years, and this year was no different with high competition and sportsmanship.

Kevin Hussey, Eastern professor and director of the Eastern badminton club, said he always appreciates the amount of sportsmanship between the girls who participate.

“The sportsmanship of the athletes is really excellent because this is pretty much self-governed, there is nobody calling the matches throughout the duration of the time, except when we get to the finals when we put officials on the court,” said Hussey. “It’s pretty admirable that they can do that without much controversy.”

This tournament consists of two competitions-the doubles tournament and the singles tournament.

Each has its own brackets and seeds, but all wins were added to the total team point system, which leads to the overall team state champions.

This year, the state champions within the doubles bracket were third seeded, twin sisters Maggie Van Grondelle and Katie Van Grondelle, freshmen from Palatine High School.

The singles state champion was second seeded Jenna Langhorst, a senior from Fremd High School in Palatine. Fremd also placed first as a team.

“It was really exciting to win and earn the points to push my team into first place,” said Langhorst.

Langhorst played against top seeded Kelly Byar, who was trying to defend the championship title in a three-game match.

“I knew (Byar) had been training during the off-season but I knew I had to win in order for my team to have enough points for first place,” Langhorst said. “It was nice to win after loosing to her last year.”

Hussey said the IHSA committee approached him five years ago about hosting this tournament.

Hussey said the tournament had always been hosted at high schools, because all of the teams are from north of Kankakee.

Because colleges host most of the other IHSA State Finals, they wanted to move it to a university campus.

The five-year contract will be concluded next year, but Hussey thinks this will be renewed.

“As long as I still have my helpers working with me, I plan to keep the tournament here at Eastern,” Hussey said.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7943 or at [email protected].