Garden Grove Win Sets Up Showdown With Villa Park

For the first time this decade, Alhambra Keppel won’t be in the Southern Section badminton final. In fact, it will be only the second time in the ‘90s that Keppel hasn’t won the title.

Both times Garden Grove has been the team to stop them. This time, on Thursday, it was in the semifinals. The second-seeded Argonauts easily handled Keppel, 13-6, and advanced to Tuesday’s final.

The victory meant a lot to the Argonauts, who lost last year’s championship to Keppel, 10-9. It was the third time in four attempts that Keppel had taken the title from Garden Grove.

“Oh, yeah, we were fired up,” Garden Grove senior Tam Nguyen said.

Garden Grove (17-1) knew they were on their way to the victory after a first-round sweep in mixed doubles to take a 3-0 lead. After that they extended the lead to 9-2.

First-year Argonaut Coach Pratt Mallawong moved Nguyen, the Southern Section boys’ singles champion, into boys’ and mixed doubles, and Nguyen accounted for three of the Argonauts’ points.

Without Nguyen in boys’ singles, Keppel (16-4) swept, but Garden Grove swept in boys’ and girls’ doubles to put the match away.

“This is a dream come true,” Mallawong said. “This was a huge hurdle for us. But, from Day One our goal has been to win it all. We have just one more to go.”

Garden Grove will face top-seeded Villa Park (18-0) in the final at the Orange County Badminton Club, which is Villa Park’s home court.

“They definitely have home-court advantage,” Mallawong said. “Tell them to come over here and play us. We’ll take them.”

The Spartans did play at Garden Grove this season, with Villa Park winning, 10-9, but then the Argonauts were without one of their top players, Jamie Kong, who was out with a pulled muscle. She has recovered and is back on the team.

Against Keppel, Kong partnered with Quang Pham in mixed doubles and defeated Eddie Hsiu and Yibing Shi, 15-3, 15-6. Kong teamed up with Rosie Pham in girls’ doubles, winning 15-3, 13-15, 15-9 against Shi and Susan Lam and then defeated Pochi Fung and Eileen Lu, 15-3, 15-2.

In the other semifinal:

Villa Park 12, Alhambra 7--Mike Chansawangpuvana swept, 15-8, 15-1, and 15-9, 15-4, and Casey Peters and Alison Brown won in girls’ doubles, 15-1, 15-5, and 15-0, 15-1, for Villa Park.