Villa Park Makes Title Charge

Villa Park continued to flex its muscles Saturday at the Southern Section individual badminton championships at Orange County Badminton Club.

The Spartans won the boys’ singles and girls’ doubles titles and finished second in boys’ doubles, adding to the mixed doubles championship they captured Thursday.

Top-seeded Raymond Wong defeated second-seeded Nick Jinadasa of Long Beach Poly, 5-15, 15-6, 15-5, in the boys’ singles final.

Jinadasa appeared a step faster in the first game as he took an 8-2 lead. But Wong turned the tables in the next two games by speeding up the pace and getting Jinadasa to play into his hands.

“I wasn’t playing my best in the first game,” Wong said. “I knew I had to play faster.”

Jinadasa seemed off balance as Wong ended the second game with a 10-1 run and the final game with 10 consecutive points.

“[Wong] was playing into Nick’s style at first and he got stuck in that rhythm,” Villa Park Coach Don Van said. “But when he sped it up, Nick had no time to react to his shots.”

In girls’ doubles, top-seeded May Mangkalakiri and Connie Hwang of Villa Park cruised to a 15-2, 15-4 win against third-seeded Su-Eun Yin and Su-Ting Yin of Cerritos.

Dan Nim and Dung Troung of South El Monte won the boys’ doubles title, 15-8, 15-4, over Villa Park’s Eric Go and Michael Yau.

Top-seeded Elie Wu of Alhambra Keppel won her second consecutive girls’ singles title by defeating second-seeded Amanda Lum of Palos Verdes Peninsula, 11-1, 11-1.