Segall leads local contingent at Badminton Invitational

While Kristina Segall is hardly a badminton novice, the Moose Jaw Invitational Badminton Tournament was a new experience for the Peacock competitor.
With Alysha Evans - her partner for the last two years - out for the year with a knee injury, Segall played as a singles competitor for the first time in high school.
Despite facing some strong competition, Segall was one of three local players/teams to reach a semi-final.
Jasmine Knight from St. Walburg won the girls singles title while Caronport's Kaitlyn Fehr was third.
"I'm going to try singles this year," said Segall. "It's way more of a workout playing singles."
Segall had played doubles - both girls and mixed - during league nights, but expects to focus on singles heading into the city tournament. She wasn't sure what to expect from her first foray as a solo competitor.
"It's not too different," said Segall. "You play it deeper and in doubles you're trying to play it wide."
The field was divided into four pools with the top two in each pool advancing to the quarterfinals.
Vanier's Kolton Froehlich and Ben Douglas had a good run to advance to the semi-finals in the boys doubles. Tije Quarrie and Brett Brady from Regina Riffel won.
Caronport had a strong day capped by their victorious mixed doubles pair of Steve Kirkpatrick and Devon Wilson.
Central's girls pair of Elyse Marzolf and Riviera Witko advanced to the semis as well. Riffel's Tram Pham and Sam Tran won the gold.
Marzolf and Witko are in their third year together as a tandem and have obvious chemistry. Not only do the pair rarely stop talking to each other during a match, they're often laughing at the same time.
"Yeah we're definitely getting known for that this year," said Marzolf with a laugh when asked about their demeanor on the court.
"If we don't have fun we tend to get nippy at each other. And then if we get nippy at each other we don't play as well.
"We laugh and have fun and that's what badminton is supposed to be about anyway."
The pair have known each other since Grade 5, but had different doubles pairs in elementary school.
In their first year competing as seniors, their strong showing shows potential for a solid season. While the pair aren't looking too far ahead they were fairly pleased with their performance Saturday.
"There were little things we messed up on, little serves that we knew we could have got, but for the most part I think we did pretty good," said Witko.
Riffel's Matt Sylvester won the boys' singles title over Kameron Balfour from Gravelbourg.

Matthew Gourlie can be reached at 691-1261