Ella Berkowitz and Lula Garfield won the championship at No. 1 doubles and paced Evanston’s badminton team to an overall third place finish at the Central Suburban League South division tournament held Friday and Saturday at New Trier.
Competition was conducted in six different doubles brackets and 12 different singles brackets over the two-day test. The Kits counted singles titles from Sophie Vanderwarker at No. 8 singles and Livia Suszko at No. 11 singles, while Suszko and Saliha Ansari also took top honors at No. 6 doubles.
Evanston finished with 44.5 points, behind Glenbrook North (61.5) and New Trier (46) but ahead of Glenbrook South (32.5) and Maine South (31).
Berkowitz and Garfield bounced back from a loss in the first set to defeat Glenbrook North’s Anna Cho and Vivian Zhao by an 18-21, 21-18, 21-18 margin to take the title. The ETHS duo opened play with a 21-10, 21-17 victory over Mina Radosavljevic and Amy Guce of Maine South.
At No. 6 doubles, Suszko and Ansari topped the Glenbrook North team of Nicole Konstant/Katelyn Wu 22-20, 21-15 for the championship.
Vanderwarker pulled off an upset of the top seed, Tina Paxhia of Maine South, at No. 8 singles with her 21-12, 21-16 triumph in the finals. And Suszko knocked off another top seed, Sahithi Medikondia of GBN, in a three-set thriller, prevailing 19-21, 21-12, 21-18 at No. 11 singles.
Scoring runnerup finishes for the Wildkits in singles were Catherine Hanson at No. 2, Annie Liu at No. 4, Garfield at No. 5, Fizzy Williams at No. 6, and Mayra Bazan-Gonzalez at No. 12. Bazan-Gonzalez and Vanderwarker also claimed second at No. 5 doubles.