BAD | Season Recap

SAIT’s badminton teams had a phenomenal season in 2023-24, winning all sorts of medals, coach of the year, and all-conference selections.

On the men’s side, SAIT took home ACAC Gold in singles and doubles, with a bronze in singles as well.

After an unfortunate draw where two Trojans had to battle for a spot in the men’s singles tournament finals, Sanskar Chopra won the Bronze Medal match after Eason Wong took the spot in the championship.

Wong took Gold in two games, 21-16 and 21-19, defeating Smit Patel from rival NAIT. Wong’s only game loss in the whole tournament came to Chopra, as the two Trojans dominated the field at the ACAC Tournament.

In doubles, SAIT didn’t drop a game. After a first-round bye, Jason Chiu and Paul Ouano cruised to a Gold Medal, winning the semis 21-14 21-15, and the finals 21-19 21-8.

Again two Trojans teams had to face off in the semis, but this time Sanskar Chopra and Gurmanjot fell in a hard-fought Bronze Medal game, finishing fourth.

Paul Ouano was selected as part of the ACAC All-conference team for his achievements leading SAIT to Gold in doubles.

The Trojans also medalled twice in women’s doubles, as Taylor Burton and Ziyu Kong won Silver and Astrea Borromeo and Alia Quesnelle took home Bronze.

The two teams had to face off in the semis, but Borromeo and Quesnelle rallied back after the loss to win Bronze in two games.

Burton and Kong fought hard in the finals, but ultimately fell to TKU’s duo. They still earned a spot at Nationals for the second-place finish.

Eason Wong, along with Jason Chiu and Paul Ouano joined the women’s doubles team at Nationals at Seneca College in Ontario. There, Chiu and Ouano went undefeated again, taking home CCAA Gold.

Team ACAC also won the team event at Seneca.

For the wildly successful year, coach Austin Liaw not only won ACAC Coach of the Year, but CCAA Coach of the Year as well. It’s not a surprise after such a fantastic season from the program.

SAIT will look to maintain all the success they had moving into next year, hoping for more medals and spots at Nationals.

 Article written by Will Fisher, Journalism Student at SAIT.