2002 Great Lakes Campus Invitational
(Valparaiso, Indiana - April 7, 2002) - The University of Chicago became the first team to win two campus invitationals when it captured the Great Lakes Campus Invitationals on April 7th with an undefeated win/loss record in round robin play. The Great Lakes Campus Invitational, which was held at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana included additional teams from Valparaiso University, Eastern Illinois University, Purdue University, and Washington University.
The NBL format takes the sport of badminton, traditionally an individual sport, and lets men and women compete in a co-recreational team effort that includes innovative and fast-paced scoring. Multiple games are played in men's singles, men's doubles, women's singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles.
Each game won is a point in the total team score, and in keeping with the co-recreational emphasis of the NBL format, mixed doubles is always played as the final event. Teams are allowed to substitute players at the end of each game, and unlike traditional badminton, coaching is allowed during play.
For the University of Chicago team, the key match was their third round encounter with Purdue University. Both teams came into the match undefeated: Purdue had defeated Eastern Illinois 8-1 in the first round, and then beat Washington University 9-0; Chicago had an overtime win against Washington 7-3 in the first round and then had a second round bye. Both teams sensed that the winner of the match had a good chance in the remaining rounds to take the title.
Donny Chen and Jagdeesh Sivadasan of Chicago squared off against Purdue's Chee-Wei Lau and Frank Lin in the first men's doubles game. After Chicago won the first game 17-15, Purdue put in Maulana Kamaruddin with Chee-Wei Lau for the second men's doubles game and scored a 17-6 win.
In the meantime, Purdue's Ruchi Anand and Cyn-Yi Seah defeated Chicago's Katie Monahan and Natalie Rompella in both women's doubles games, 17-2 and 17-10.
With Purdue leading 3-1 in the team score, Chicago called upon Donny Chen and Katie Monahan for the singles events. Monahan battled Anand for a 17-15 women's singles win to narrow Purdue's lead to 3-2. Purdue then substituted Seah into the singles, and Seah's 17-15 victory against Monahan edged Purdue to a 4-2 lead.
One more win - in either the remaining men's singles events or the decisive mixed doubles - and Purdue would clinch the team win.
With the pressure on, Chicago's Donny Chen drew upon his experience of competing in three previous Great Lakes Campus Invitationals when he faced Purdue's Kamaruddin in the first men's singles event. After clinching the game 17-15, Chen then took on Chei-Wei Lau and won by the same score.
With the team score at 4-4, the match would be decided by the final
mixed doubles game. Purdue's Chei-Wei Lau and Cyn-Yi Seah reached
15-13 against the Chicago duo of Chen and Monahan - two points from
victory. Chicago, however, held on and closed out a satisfying 17-15
mixed doubles win to give their team a narrow 5-4 victory.
With their record at 2-0, Chicago then defeated Valparaiso 8-2 in the fourth round and Eastern Illinois 8-1 in the fifth round to earn their second Great Lakes Campus Invitational.
