March 27, 2019, by llyad10
BUCS Big Wednesday | UoN Women’s Badminton win the BUCS Championship
Women’s Championship Final
The day’s Badminton action kicked-off with the Ladies’ Championship final, which saw the 1st Teams of University of Nottingham and Loughborough do battle, in a highly anticipated fixture. Four hotly-billed singles and doubles matches were on the line-up, as Nottingham, who had narrow topped their opponents in Premier North league standings this year, looked to complete a bumper season with further silverware on #BUCSBigWednesday!
University of Nottingham Sport Lineup
| Li Lian Yang (C) | |||||
| Hannah Boden | |||||
| Emily Westwood | |||||
| Emily Witts | |||||
| Serena Midha | |||||
| Tiara Samuel |
The #GreenandGold opened proceedings in emphatic fashion, with UoN’s Number 2, Hannah Boden, overpowering Loughborough’s first-ranked player, Evie Burbidge 21-18 21-14. The host’s quality was evident as Boden’s win was shortly followed by a Li Lian Yang victory in her first singles match of the fixture (21-13 21-8) against Jenny Moore.
A strong start from Nottingham put them two matches to the good going into the doubles, where Emily Westwood and Emily Witts paired up to prolong the pain for Loughborough winning 21-16 21-19 to take the match to 3-0 for the #GreenandGold.
The tables were turned with Hannah Boden and doubles pairing of Serena Midah/ Tiara Samuel both missing out on the points following a resurgence from Loughborough.
It finally came down to team captain Li Lian Yang who had the opportunity to take victory for the Green and Gold. She took little time to winning her match 2-0 to secure the vital 4th point in the match and bring the Championship home for University of Nottingham – the ladies finally crowned the best Women’s Badminton team in the country.
Emily Westwood and Emily Westwood won the 5th via walkover due to an unfortunate injury to Jess Hopton and with the remainder of the match a formality, University of Nottingham had won the BUCS Championship title.
Men’s Championship Final
The University of Nottingham Men’s 1st Badminton team knew their final was going to be a difficult fight against Loughborough Men’s first. Many of the pairings had met before at BUCS Nationals earlier this year where Loughborough took home the silverware.
The team lineup was:
| Johnnie Torjussen |
| Phone Pyae Naing |
| James Youle ‘C’ |
| Sam Smith |
| Dan Blair |
| Leon Griffiths |
Nottingham put up a good fight, keeping the healthy crowd of fans on the sidelines entertained with long rallies against their local rivals. There were victories for Johnnie Tojussen and Phone Pyae Naing against David Jones in singles and a doubles point for Sam Smith/ James Youle vs Matt Cave/Max Flynn. However, 23 year-old Sam Parsons, was forced to show all of his class against Phone Naing and Johnnie Torjussen with the Coventry born BUCS National Champion coming up victorious and securing key points for Loughborough – the result, a thoroughly deserved 3-5 victory to Loughborough who were crowned as BUCS Champions.
Women’s Trophy Final
The University of Nottingham Badminton Women’s 2s got the action underway in the early afternoon. The ladies had found themselves in a final last year and had come up short, but were hoping that wasn’t going to be the same again and that they could win on home turf against Derby.
| Hilda Ho (C) |
| Bryony Taylor |
| Nicola Ho |
| Lucy Gorham |
| Emily Robinson |
| Lucy Jarvis |
Sadly for #GreenandGold it wasn’t to be their afternoon. Having already finished runners up to Team Derby 1s in the BUCS league over the course of the regular season, the same was to be said for their matchup in the final of the Women’s Trophy. A strong Team Derby, led by experienced Malaysia badminton star, Lydia Cheah recorded a 6- 2 victory meaning the #GreenandGold had to settle for a well deserved silver medal.
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