Campus Invitational
(October 27, 2003 - West Lafayette, Ind.) - Indiana University won its first Great Lakes Campus Invitational on October 25th with a 6-3 final round win over Michigan State University. The Great Lakes Campus Invitational, an annual event since 1998, was held at Purdue University and also included teams from Purdue and the University of Illinois.
The NBL format takes the sport of badminton, traditionally an individual sport, and lets men and women compete in a co-recreational team format 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 inkeeping 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 Indiana University team, the key match was their second round encounter with the University of Illinois. Indiana beat Purdue in the first round, and even though Illinois had lost to Michigan State, the Illini knew that a win over the Hoosiers would keep them alive in the round robin format.
Illinois raced to a 6-2 lead, winning two games in women's singles, two games in men's doubles, and two games in women's doubles. Indiana's only points came in the two men's singles games, won by Qin (Arthur) Zhu.
With only one game of mixed doubles remaining, an Illinois victory seemed certain. The Indiana team faced a formidable task: it had to win the final mixed doubles game and send the match into Overtime in order to win. According to NBL rules, if the trailing team wins the mixed doubles, the match is not over. Additional mixed doubles games are played until the trailing team can tie the score, or until the leading team wins one game of mixed doubles before the score can be tied.
Indiana's mixed doubles team of Zhu and Feng-Ru Sheu won the mixed doubles to narrow Illinois' lead to 6-3 and force the Overtime. The Indiana pair then won three mixed doubles games in a row to tie the score at 6-6. Since Indiana was the designated home team, it was allowed to choose any event for the final Tiebreak game. Indiana chose men's singles, and Zhu cruised to an easy win and a 7-6 team victory.
The third round featured an encounter between two undefeated teams: Indiana and Michigan State. After splitting the first six games to tie at 3-3, Indiana pulled away when Zhu defeated Kwan Chan in the first men's singles game and Wei Zhang in the second men's singles game. Zhu then teamed with Feng-Ru Sheu to win the mixed doubles point, earning a 6-3 win for Indiana.
Results
First Round. Michigan State d University
of Illinois 5-4. Indiana University d Purdue University 6-3.
Second Round. Michigan State d Purdue University
9-0. Indiana University d University of Illinois 7-6 (OT).
Third Round. Indiana University d Michigan
State 6-3. University of Illinois d Purdue University 7-4.
Final Standings
1. Indiana University 3-0
2. Michigan State University 2-1
3. University of Illinois 1-2
4. Purdue University 0-3
