Xavier badminton team wins state championship

Julia Friedman (left) and Weslie Norris.

All eyes in gym were on them. The focus of state badminton championship between Xavier College Preparatory and Mountain Pointe, which had started an hour earlier with six simultaneous singles matches, was now squarely on the doubles match between each school’s number 3 ranked doubles teams. The first and second ranked doubles teams had just started to play their matches, but not many people were paying attention to them. Even the players for those doubles teams kept glancing over to court number 3, where Xavier’s Weslie Norris and Julia Friedman were playing Mountain Pointe’s Danielle Stewart and Nadya Zolotova.

Julia already had won her singles match, as had her teammates Carissa Pappas, Danielle Dozer and Danielle Mark, to give Xavier a 4-2 lead in the team competition. One more win would give Xavier the title and everyone in the crowd of more than 200 knew it.

Badminton is usually played in a quiet gym before a handful of people. There was nothing quiet about the Shadow Mountain High School gym, especially after Julia and Weslie won their first game 15-3 in just six minutes.

“It definitely made us more nervous,” Julia said, “but we tried really hard to keep our focus.”

“We had never played in front of a crowd like that before,” Weslie added.

Julia and Weslie were able to keep their focus for eight more minutes, which was the time they needed to win the second, and deciding, game 15-6. The shuttlecock had barely hit the net and fallen to the floor, when the Xavier players on the other two courts stopped in the middle of play and rushed over to hug their teammates.

“It’s the best feeling ever,” Weslie said of the moment she and Julia won the deciding match to win the state title.

The Dozer family.

Afterward, parents posed with their daughters around the championship trophy. Danielle Dozer’s dad, Rich, former president of the Arizona Diamondbacks, had posed for similar photos exactly eight years ago to the night, when the Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series. Rich recalled how Danielle, then age 9, ran around the Diamondbacks clubhouse spraying champagne after the dramatic Game 7 win.

“I was much more nervous tonight because it is my own daughter,” Rich said.

The Diamondbacks winning the World Series may be the greatest moment in Arizona sports history, but I have a pretty good feeling that, for Rich Dozer, it now comes in second to his daughter’s team winning the 2009 5A state badminton title. — Dan Barr

Back row: Head Coach Nancy Meyer, Danielle Mark, Danielle Dozer, Cate Welch, Carissa Pappas, Assistant Coach Susie Murphy. Front: Julia Friedman and Weslie Norris.

Xavier College Preparatory's 5A State Championship badminton team.

You’ve got to show up

One of the great lessons that sports can teach is that you have got to get up after you have been knocked down.

Danielle Mark learned that lesson Monday night at the state 5A badminton semifinals at Shadow Mountain High School. Because she did, she and her Xavier College Preparatory Gator teammates will play for the state title this Wednesday night against Mountain Pointe.

Xavier badminton doubles team Carissa Pappas (left) and Danielle Mark.

Three weeks ago, I wrote about Danielle and her doubles partner, Carissa Pappas, when they played a Saturday tournament at Chaparral High School (“What most of us don’t know about badminton”). On that day, I asked Danielle what advice she would give young girls who wanted to play badminton.

“Our coach always says, ‘You’ve got to show up,’” Danielle told me on that day. “Show up both mentally and physically.”

Well, on Monday night, Danielle was nowhere to be seen in her singles match against Chaparral’s Joelle Fang, who displayed a deft touch with drop shots and placement. Danielle was skunked in the first game 11-0 and lost the second game 11-8. The match was over before it began. Danielle was frustrated, flustered and upset with herself.

About 45 minutes later it had all turned around. Now playing doubles with Carissa, who had previously won her singles match, Danielle looked like a different player. She was confident and assertive when only a short while earlier she had looked listless and confused.

With Xavier’s other doubles team losing and Chaparral threatening to pull even in the team match, Danielle and Carissa convincingly won their doubles match in straight games, 15-2 and 15-1, and in doing so propelled their team into the state finals.

“It’s not over yet,” said Carissa after the match, “but this is amazing.”

“We have been wanting this from the get go,” said Danielle of the state title. “And now we are so close.”

Xavier will have its hands full on Wednesday with Mountain Pointe, which beat Millennium 5-3 in a spirited group of matches on the other side of the gym. If nothing else, the Mountain Pointe girls should get the tournament award for “most creative team shirts.” Theirs are black and state on the back “We put the Bad in Badminton.”

The essence of a great teammate is showing up when your team needs you the most. Danielle got up after being knocked down on Monday night and now her team moves on.

The 5A badminton state championship will be at Shadow Mountain High School, 2902 E. Shea Blvd, at 6:30pm Wednesday. Admission is $5. The championship should be highly competitive. From what I saw on Monday, if any of the girls gets knocked down, they won’t stay down for very long. — Dan Barr

What most of us don’t know about badminton

The Duke of Beaufort would have been pleased that so many people were playing and watching his game in Scottsdale today. In 1836, the Duke invented the modern version of a game that dates back to ancient Greece and China, and that the British had run across in their then-colony of India. He named the game after his English country home — the House of Badminton.

Today’s scene at the Firebird Invitational badminton tournament at Chaparral High School was far removed from an English country home. Sixty-five girls from nine Valley high schools filled nine badminton courts in the Chaparral gym, which had five state title badminton banners hanging on the wall.

Two of the players, the doubles team of Danielle Mark (at left in photo) and Carissa Pappas, from the currently top ranked team in the state, the Xavier College Prep Gators, shared with me some things about badminton that most people don’t know.

Despite its elegance, badminton is a lot of work, they said. The Xavier team practices three hours a day, five days a week. They start the day at school at 6:30 a.m. for an hour of conditioning work, which includes sprints, footwork agility drills and core/abdominal exercises such as the plank, bicycle crunches and working with medicine balls. After school, they have two hours of practice on badminton.

Both Danielle and Carissa first played badminton in freshman P.E. class. Danielle started playing competitively as a sophomore and Carissa as a junior.

“It is not a common sport and not something that people would expect to be competitive,” Danielle said. Carissa likes the mental side of the game. “You can have all the physical skills, but if you have a bad mental game, you can’t win anything.”

“I don’t know what I would do without badminton,” Carissa said, noting that there are no college scholarships available in the sport. “I would love to play in college.”

“So what don’t people appreciate about badminton?” I asked them.

“That it’s actually hard,” Danielle said. “It uses a lot of physicality and balance. You are constantly moving.”

Carissa compared badminton to tennis, which she once played competitively. “Badminton has more quickness and little spurts of energy,” Carissa said. “Tennis is more fluid.”

So what advice do the two Xavier girls have for those of us who play badminton once or twice a year at a picnic? “Hit through the bird. Don’t tap it,” Carissa said.

Danielle had more general advice, which extends well beyond badminton and other sports. “Our coach always says, ‘You’ve got to show up.’ Show up both mentally and physically.”

The 5A high state badminton championship will be played this year at Dobson High School in Mesa. The team competition will be Oct. 31 and Nov. 2 and 4. The individual singles and doubles championships will be Nov. 6 and 7. Admission is $5 and kids under 5 are free. If you or your daughter is interested in learning more about badminton, you should go. I have a pretty good feeling that Danielle, Carissa and the rest of their Xavier teammates (below) will show up. — Dan Barr