Conant pair will get singular opportunity

Conant's Selina Imamura and Ayaka Yoshinari have been one of the top doubles teams in Mid-Suburban League badminton this year.

They beat Fremd's returning state qualifying duo of Alice Liu and Annie Huang 21-6, 21-17 in a dual 10 days ago. They also lost a three-set match to defending state champions Heather and Ashton Nisbet of Buffalo Grove.

"Hopefully they'll have a good run at the title for the MSL," said second-year Conant coach Carl Watschke of tonight's doubles competition in the league tournament at Elk Grove.

But after this weekend, Imamura and Yoshinari are expected to go their separate ways and will try to get to state in singles. Imamura made it to Saturday at last year's state tournament and was eliminated in the fifth round of the consolation bracket.

"If they come up and tell me they want to go doubles, of course they'll go doubles," Watschke said. "It's always an option.

"They've matured from last year and they take every game as a practice until the sectional meet."

Watschke said that approach has been evident in their play.

"They've been down sets and come back," he said, "and they've played some lesser competition and kept their minds in the game and didn't drop down to other people's levels."

Watshcke also thinks he has a nice building block for the future in freshman Emily Haney, who has been playing No. 9 singles and No. 3 doubles with Steph Chan.

"We're trying to groom her into a nice doubles player," Watschke said. "She's positive and receptive to coaching and hopefully it will pay off for us."

A real duel dual: When Buffalo Grove beat Fremd 8-7 in last week's MSL crossover it didn't have an impact on this weekend's race for a team title. But it did leave quite an impression on Fremd coach Bob Hanson.

"For a dual match that was one of the most exciting ones I've seen in a long time," Hanson said. "Both teams played hard. I knew it would come down to 8-7 but I didn't know which end we were going to be on."

Blood is thicker: Buffalo Grove coach Chris Van Grondelle enjoys the comforts of his home.

So there wasn't any doubt about where his ultimate rooting interests were when daughters Katie and Maggie beat BG's Ashton and Heather Nisbet in last Friday's Bison quad.

"It's funny, they actually came off the match the other day and said, 'Dad, who are you rooting for?'" Van Grondelle said. "I said, 'Are you kidding?'

"When that match is going on I watch and don't say a word. My assistants coach it and I don't cheer for anybody."

Sectionals on the horizon: Sectional sites and breakdowns will be determined Monday night. Buffalo Grove, Fremd and New Trier will host sectionals next week out of the New Trier complex. Conant also has a sectional complex.