Southern Section Badminton Championships : Glendale Is Too Strong for Buena Park and Wins 4-A Team Final, 12-7

Glendale High School ruined Buena Park Coach Claudine Casey’s bid for a third Southern Section badminton championship by scoring a 12-7 victory in the 4-A team championships Tuesday at Walnut High School.

Casey, who has coached Buena Park badminton teams since 1958, saw Glendale use its strength in mixed doubles to take a 5-2 lead and then utilize its superior depth to hold on for the title.

“I wanted to win this one so bad; I’m retiring after this year,” said Casey, who led the team to two championships in six trips to the Southern Section finals since 1980. “I expected it to be close, but everyone would have had to play perfect games for us to win it. Glendale just had a little more depth and experience than we did.”

Glendale won all three mixed doubles matches. The Dynamiters’ No. 1 team, Sung Hong and Angela Armendariz, used a series of well-placed overhand smashes to defeat Buena Park’s Tu Le and Chulki Song, 15-9, 9-15, 15-7.

Armendariz’s sister, Christiane, teamed with Albert Wu to win the No. 2 mixed doubles match over Buena Park’s Tonya Vandervort and Ek Sriphakdee, 11-15, 15-11, 15-3, and Chris Guo and Jane Ong of Glendale defeated Vandervort’s stepsister, Heather Hassinger, and Tiep Tran, 15-5, 15-7, in the No. 3 match.

Glendale also won three of four matches in boys’ singles and doubles and then split the two girls’ doubles matches.

Hassinger and Vandervort, who lost the Southern Section 4-A individual girls’ doubles championship to the Armendariz sisters two weeks ago, kept Buena Park close by accounting for three victories. Hassinger defeated Angela Armendariz, 11-3, 8-11, 11-6 and Christiane Armendariz, 8-11, 11-3, 11-6 in singles play.

“I wasn’t too confident going into my singles matches because I never faced either Armendariz before in singles,” Hassinger said. “They both gave me some trouble, but they aren’t nearly as tough in singles competition as they are in doubles play.”

Vandervort defeated Christiane, 6-11, 11-3, 11-1, but lost to Angela, 11-7, 11-3.

Song, Buena Park’s No. 1 boys’ singles player, split his two matches. After losing to Glendale’s best player, Sung Hong, 15-11, 15-13, he defeated George Chang, 15-2, 15-4.

In boys’ doubles, Sriphakdee teamed with Tran to defeat Glendale’s Kyungsik Kim and Edward Han, 15-3, 17-16.

Buena Park’s two other victories came in girls’ doubles. Sisters Souki and Dewee Sundara defeated Glendale’s Chloe Salvatierra and Jinetta Shin, 15-9, 15-3. Tu Le and Juhee Choi defeated Salvatierra and Shin, 15-1, 15-3.