KU women’s badminton team through to semi-finals

KU’s undefeated women’s badminton team are off to the South Eastern Conference Cup semi-finals.

Lesley-Anne Morley

Kingston’s Sam Bennet and Emma Clark secured KU’s place in the semi-finals with a win against the University of Portsmouth on Wednesday at Tiffin Sport Centre.

The match came down to Bennet and Clark’s third and final game against Portsmouth captain Nicola Haggar and her partner Freya McCarthy.

Clark said: “Sam and I haven’t really played together before. It took a while to get it together. They are definitely the strongest team we’ve played so far.

“We knew that if we won the last game we’d be through so we just had to keep going.”

The power of one

Portsmouth arrived one player short and forfeited two of the singles games.

Emily Trebert, Portsmouth’s lone singles player, dominated the court and kept Kingston singles, Rebecca Stavely-Taylor and Pieta Chan to single-digit scores in every game.

Trebert said: “I’m feeling pretty good about today’s performance even though it’s late in the day and it’s normally training time, not game time. 

“Then there’s the train travel up and rushing because we were late, but I’m happy with my games.”

Doubles mash up

With Portsmouth’s shortage of players, Kingston had to make last-minute changes to their line-up to put up a stronger attack in the doubles matches.

Bennet and Clark were meant to play singles and Lilian Yau partnered  newcomer Lily Simmons instead of Stavely-Taylor.

Simmons said: “These were really strong opponents and we had to try and change it up a little bit to try and get more points.

“It was my first time playing with Lilian and I think by the end of it we got the hang of it.”

The next home match is against Buckinghamshire New University on February 27 at the Tiffin Sports Centre at 8pm.

Singles

Stavely-Taylor (KU) v. Trebert (UP)          4-21, 6-21                            Portsmouth Win

Chan (KU) v. Trebert (UP)                            5-21, 6-21                            Portsmouth Win

Stavely-Taylor (KU) v.  —-(UP)                  Portsmouth Forfeit         Kingston Win

Chan (KU) v.  —- (UP)                                    Portsmouth Forfeit         Kingston Win

Doubles

Bennet/ Clark (KU) v. Phillips/ Hastings (UP)        21-16, 21-13                        Kingston Win

Yau/ Simmons (KU) v. Haggar/ McCarthy (UP)    3-21, 10-21                          Portsmouth Win

Bennet/ Clark (KU) v. Haggar/ McCarthy (UP)     21-18, 16-21, 22-20          Kingston Win

Yau/ Simmons (KU) v. Phillips/ Hastings (UP)       22-20, 21-16                        Kingston Win