SECTION PLAYOFFS : Badminton : Hoover’s Lam Is a Double Winner in Individual Finals

The first thing one notices upon walking into the gym in Balboa Park, nondescriptly known as the Federal Building, is that there are no basketball hoops. No backboards, no foul lines, nothing.

Something much different goes on there. It’s called badminton and to the players there Thursday for the San Diego Section individual championships, it was no picnic.

Except, that is, for No. 1 seed Bin Lam, a junior from Hoover who disposed of every copy editor’s nightmare, Mang Insixiensmay, 15-6, 15-3, to win the boys’ singles crown.

Lopsided, yes, but apparently not lopsided enough for Lam’s liking, who judged the match from a historical perspective. Lam and Insixiensmay had previously gone at it in last year’s quarterfinals with Lam emerging, 15-0, 15-1.

“My goal was to beat him zero, zero,” Lam said. “(But) I wasn’t concentrating as well as I should have been.”

Insixiensmay agreed, then used the same excuse for failing to blow out the La Jolla team of Randy Strauss and Tim Yu in the doubles final. Insixiensmay and Amp Khounnoraj had to come back after losing the first game, then had to fight through a “reset” in the final game before scoring a 12-15, 15-7, 5-2 victory and claiming the boys’ title.

“They’re still juniors, and they play hard,” Insixiensmay said of Strauss and Yu, who came in seeded fourth. “I have to give them credit, but I wasn’t in the game mentally.”

Insixiensmay and Khounnoraj were seeded fifth.

Lam, who has been playing the game for four years, gained a second championship when he hooked up with Phung Hua, a first-year player, in mixed doubles and defeated Hoover schoolmates Hoa Dam and Lam Hua (Phung’s sister), 15-12, 15-9.

If you think there may have been a touch of sibling rivalry in the Hua household, forget it. “It’s like nothing,” Phung said.

“It’s just a game,” Lam added. “We didn’t even talk about it last night, we just did homework and watched a movie.”

Phung Hua was also a double winner. She and Linh Truong, seeded No. 2, dropped top-seeded T.J. Lanuzo and Nhu Truong of Serra, 12-15, 15-5, 17-7, for the girls’ doubles title.