New Zealand Secondary Schools Badminton Championships

The 40th New Zealand Secondary Schools Badminton Championships was held at the Pettigrew Green Arena in Taradale, Napier from 4-7 September 2017.

It was a record year for this event with 44 teams and 225 players competing to claim a title. Macleans College was represented by two teams (one Girls’ and one Boys’ team) in the competition’s top First Division. Seeded first, the Girls’ team was made up of Sally Fu (Kupe House), Sonia Lu (Mansfield), Rachel Li (Rutherford), Janice Jiang (Kupe) and Sophie Li (Batten). Seeded sixth, the Boys’ team was made up of Matthew Yang (Snell), Adam Fu (Kupe), Johnson Li (Mansfield), Keaton Tang (Te Kanawa) and Kevin Wu (Snell).

The outstanding achievements of the Championships were:

• The Girls’ Team won the 2017 Championships by defeating Westlake Girls’ High in the Final and retaining the Carlton-Slazenger Cup; having previously won the Championships in 2005 and 2014.
• The Girls’ Team showed a lot of resilience, skills and experience to overcome the disappointment of the past two years and finally took the title undefeated.

Badminton New Zealand, on the performance of the Macleans College Girls’ Team, quotes “With the final showdown scheduled for Thursday afternoon (the 7th of September 2017), Macleans College were careful to manage the workload on their players, resting national champion Sally Fu on several occasions, to ensure they were as fresh as possible for the decider (with Westlake Girls’ High). It may have just been the difference they needed, as the tie wrapped up at 3-3, with just one game and 19 points separating the sides.”
Source: Top Seeds Shine at New Zealand Secondary School Championships

Other achievements included the Boys’ Team marking their return to Division 1 with a fifth place finish, having won the Bronze medal in Division 2 in the year 2016 in Hamilton.