Badminton/Scouting the MSL tournament
By Marty Maciaszek
mmaciaszek@dailyherald.com
When: Doubles — 4:30 p.m. Friday; Singles — 9 a.m. Saturday.
Where: Buffalo Grove High School
Division standings: East: 1. Buffalo Grove, 2. Prospect, 3. Hersey, 4. Elk Grove, 5. Rolling Meadows, 6. Wheeling; West: 1. Fremd, 2. Palatine, 3. Barrington, 4. Hoffman Estates, 5. Conant, 6. Schaumburg. The division finish counts for half of the overall conference finish.
Outlook: Fremd has been gearing toward the first part of the biggest three weeks of the year and is the clear favorite to win its seventh straight MSL title. “The whole season we’ve played a lot better,” said Fremd senior and fourth-year varsity standout Annie Huang of this year’s more experienced crew. “We’re bonding together even more and we know how to support each other a lot more.” Huang and sophomore Angela Wu lead the way in singles and the Vikings have state-quality doubles play from Ji Young Seo-Kelly Owens and Rina Seo-Maya Sugikawa. Huang and Wu will also be formidable in doubles play. “They take a lot of pride in wanting to protect the streak of MSL wins,” said Fremd coach Bob Hanson. The Vikings’ closest competitor in recent years has been Buffalo Grove but it lost their MSL crossover dual 12-3 last week. But the Bison showed their strong doubles tradition continues as seniors Jenny Krewer and Kelsey Henrikson will be part of a tough group at No. 1 after beating Fremd last week. “We’ve played a lot of good competition,” Krewer said, “and we’ve tried to go into it to improve every time and play our best.” Palatine has one of the best in the state as senior and defending doubles state champion Maggie Van Grondelle gears up for a run at the singles crown. Van Grondelle is 34-2 at singles and has split two matches with Wu and she is 13-0 at doubles with Carly Joseph. “Maggie is on top of her game and has such great state experiences to draw from, that she knows what skills in her game she needs to refine and what goals she wants to accomplish,” said Palatine coach Alison West. Freshman Annie Van Grondelle and Emily Anderson have also done well against some solid MSL doubles teams this year. Also looking to make an impact at doubles is Prospect’s state-qualifying duo of Shea Gallus and Noreen Caporusso, which is 23-7 and won titles at the Knights Invitational and New Trier’s Featherfest. Hersey’s Jen Hall in singles and Barrington’s doubles team of Shirley Ni and Kathy Ho earned a big early-season win over BG.