Villa Park Tough Right Off the Mark

Villa Park is starting up a badminton program this season.

How can a first-year program expect to compete with the dominant programs from Garden Grove and Alhambra Keppel high schools?

Easy.

Give the team a first-class practice and home-court facility, throw in a number of junior national players, add a coach who really cares, and you have a first-year program that has a legitimate shot at the Southern Section title.

The Spartans are stacked.

While most high school badminton players don’t begin playing until high school, a large number of the Villa Park players have been competing for years, playing at the Orange County Badminton Club on a regular basis.

It was those players whom club owner Don Chew wanted to help.

There have been rumblings in the past few years that some Villa Park students were interested in reviving the Spartan program. Villa Park had a team back in the 1970s, but when Proposition 13 passed, badminton was cut.

It looked as if the sport would remain on hiatus at Villa Park, until Chew stepped forward.

“Our school didn’t want the headaches of financing and scheduling the sport, but there is a large segment of our school population that wanted the sport back,” Spartan Coach Sherry Smith said. “Don made a donation for the program and offered his facility for our team to use. Now we are very spoiled.”

Badminton, in fact, is so popular at Villa Park, that Smith actually had to have tryouts and make some cuts.

“We had a tremendous number of kids try out,” Smith said. “It is very popular for P.E. here and the kids are so excited.”

Smith’s team is so loaded with talent, that when it came time to schedule her matches for the season, she spent hours on the phone trying to find willing competition.

She was finally able to dig up some teams to play, but the Spartans will not be in a league, playing a freelance schedule this season.

“It’s difficult for us to have to be freelance,” Smith said. “A lot of the teams I talked to didn’t want to play us because they said we are going to be too strong. But, some also jumped at the chance, because they wanted to see how they compete against some of the top players.”

But, while defending Division I champion Keppel had no room on its schedule for the Spartans, Garden Grove did, and the teams will meet Thursday at Garden Grove. It’s a matchup of the county’s top two teams.

Villa Park might have the upper-hand in the match, as the teams have already met once this season, in the Garden Grove tournament.

The Spartans came away with two titles, in mixed doubles and girls’ doubles.

The mixed doubles team of sophomore May Mangkalakiri and freshman Mike Chansawangpuvana, is probably headed to a berth in the Southern Section finals, and each player could quite possibly advance to the singles finals.

Smith says her girls are definitely the strength of the Spartan program and in any pairing are going to give opponents trouble.

“Our whole lineup of girls is strong, from top to bottom,” Smith said. “But I’m really pleased with our team and I think we are going to be right up there at the end of the season.”

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PRESEASON TOP 10

1. Villa Park, First-year fully loaded program.

2. Garden Grove, Villa Park’s only real competition.

3. Loara, Always a strong program.

4. Katella, Hoping to take league from Loara.

5. Troy, Should win Freeway League title.

6. Westminster, Favorite in the Golden West League.

7. Marina, Looking for second place in league.

8. Ocean View, Could give Westminster run for title.

9. Bolsa Grande, Another strong Garden Grove team.

10. La Habra, Could battle for league title.