2016 OCAA CHAMPIONS CROWNED IN BADMINTON

NORTH YORK, Ont. - The 2016 Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) Badminton Championships are in the books as five teams were crowned OCAA champions at the Seneca College this afternoon.

Olivia Lei (Humber) won her second straight OCAA championship in women's singles, going undefeated. Lei defeated Fanshawe's Tilottama Vaidya in the semi-final and Conestoga's Jessica Murray in the final 21-10, 21-5. In the bronze medal match, Vaiyda defeated St. Lawrence-Brockville's Jessica Fang 21-18, 21-16.

In women's doubles, Seneca's Yan Zhou and Rachel Nham completed a perfect weekend, going 5-0 in the round robin before winning their semi-final over Fanshawe's Riley Hogan and Jodi Grobbecker. In the gold medal match, the Sting duo defeated George Brown's Yunji Kim and Angeline Alviar in straight sets 21-9, 21-16. Humber's Michelle Chow and Sandy Chen defeated Hogan and Grobbecker in the bronze medal match 21-12, 21-13.

The mixed doubles division saw Humber's Phuthita Nilyok and Jesse Assing defeat St. Clair's Aliana Lee and Somath Kong in straight sets 21-8, 21-15 to capture the gold medal. Nilyok and Assing were 5-0 in round robin action before defeating Conestoga's Alexis Grant and Yizhi Zhang in the semi-final. George Brown's Tomomi Tamura and Ben Yong captured the bronze medal over Grant and Zhang from Conestoga.

Humber's Adam Dong and Ryan Chow captured the gold medal in men's doubles over Redeemer's Ryan Phan and Kevin Barkman in straight sets. Dong and Chow were perfect all weekend, defeating Seneca's Allan Tong and Peter Nie in the semi-final. Tong and Nie rebounded to defeat Georgian's Ethan Zhao and Eric Kern in the bronze medal final.

In the men's singles championship match, Seneca's Wenchao Shi defeated defending national champion Owen Kurvits from Redeemer in straight sets 21-15, 21-18. Shi completed a 7-0 championship while Kurvits suffered his second loss to Shi. U of T Mississauga's Yue Chen captured the bronze medal over Humber's Jonathan Young in three sets 22-20, 11-21, 21-18.

Humber won both OCAA men's and women's team titles for the third straight season.

The OCAA champion and silver medalists in each discipline move on to the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association Badminton National Championship March 2-5 at Vancouver Island University where they will represent Team Ontario.

All photos from the OCAA Championships can be found at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1299770200048850.1073742123.174399265919288&type=3. They should all be uploaded by end of day Monday.

Source: Seneca College

- OCAA -

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