Cyrus Brandt and Micah Reimer of Steinbach Christian brought home silver medals from the Provincial High School Badminton Championships earlier this month in Brandon.

“It was quite an accomplishment for us because we weren’t really expecting to make it into the finals from where we were sitting in the round robin,” said Brandt. “We just went out there with the mentality of having a lot of fun and we were just on top of our game that day.”

Brandt and Reimer recorded a 6 and 1 record in the mixed doubles round robin.

In the playoff round the Flames duo defeated Gurveer Sran & Gabrielle Legaspi of the Maples 21-11, 2-17; beat Levi Gunnink & Brandi Bergsma of Dufferin Christian 21-16, 21-17 in the quarterfinals; defeated Jack Zonneveld & Julia Tan of Fort Richmond 21-13, 21-8 in the semifinals and then lost 21-17, 21-16 to David Muller & Coral Zamzow of Swan Valley in the mixed doubles final.

“They were a solid team for sure,” said Brandt when asked to comment on the play of Muller & Zamzow. “They didn’t give us lots to work with. We struggled to find their weakness and only started to really realize where we were getting our points in the second game but we had fun and silver was as good as we could do.”

Noah Koslowsky and Sierra Hildebrand of Steinbach Christian finished sixth in boys singles and 12th in girls singles respectively.

In the A/AA team aggregate competition the Flames finished in second place, eight points back of the Grand Rapids Wolverines.

Brandt says the Flames success winning the Zone 13 championship and their great performance at the Provincials is due to the commitment of the players and coach Scott Schalla.

“It’s a solid program. We practiced a few times a week and with a lot of different people from different age groups. Coach Schalla does a really good job of handling the kids and giving them good knowledge of the game – how to play and he really helps our game.”

Sasha St. Pierre of the Lac du Bonnet Chargers finished fourth in girls singles while Paisley Poirier & Emma Boulet were fourth in girls doubles.


photos courtesy Scott Schalla