Villa Park Star Golden Amid Silence

A noticeable silence fell around the court every time Villa Park’s Mike Chansawangpuvana scored a point.

However, the top-seeded player ignored the crowd’s snubs and cheers for his opponent, and went on to defeat Nicholas Jinadasa of Long Beach Poly, 15-9, 15-4, to win the boys’ singles championship at the Southern Section Division I badminton finals Saturday at the Orange County Badminton Club in Orange.

“Did you believe that?” Chansawangpuvana said. “There would be all this screaming and noise over there, and then I’d make a great shot, and all of a sudden it was dead silence. But I just think they were rooting for the underdog.”

Jinadasa, a freshman, wasn’t a big underdog. He upset top-seeded Aaron Huynh of Alhambra in the semifinals, 7-15, 15-12, 15-8, and he is the current under-16 junior national title-holder in singles and mixed doubles.

And both he and Chansawangpuvana are members of the junior national training program.

However, this might have been Jinadasa’s last opportunity in high school competition to beat Chansawangpuvana, the under-18 junior national champion in doubles and mixed doubles, who may give up high school badminton.

Several members of Villa Park’s team from last season left high school competition this year to concentrate on training.

It was Chansawangpuvana’s second title in three days, and the third title for Villa Park.

Chansawangpuvana partnered with Mai Mangkalakiri to win Thursday’s mixed-doubles final, and second-seeded Lin Cai and Connie Hwang defeated Garden Grove’s top-seeded Ly Phan and Khoa Linh Luong, 15-11, 15-12, in girls’ doubles Saturday.

Sophomores Hwang and Cai--who is in her first year on varsity--held off strong rallies from Phan and Luong in both games. Phan and Luong battled through six game points before falling in Game 1 and they came back from a 13-8 deficit before dropping the match.

Mangkalakiri, The Times’ Orange County player of the year last season, advanced to the final in girls’ singles, but was quickly defeated by top-seeded Elie Wu of Alhambra Keppel.

Wu, a finalist in women’s singles at the U.S. championships, gave up only five points in her four matches Saturday; Mangkalakiri, a junior, scored four of those in the final.

“I told Elie before the match, ‘Just don’t bagel me,’ ” Mangkalakiri joked. “And she didn’t.”