IAAM Badminton Championship
Bryn Mawr Caps Perfect Season with a Title & Wins Doubles. Garrison Forest Clinches Singles
By Maria Beam Gray
The three-day IAAM Badminton Tournament concluded on Friday, with Bryn Mawr taking the championship title, putting an exclamation point on an undefeated regular season run.
Garrison Forest’s Gracie Kothari battled to earn the singles championship, while Bryn Mawr’s Liana Kai and Aashna Thadani won the doubles crown.
Hosted at Roland Park Country School, both singles and doubles badminton action kicked off on Wednesday, April 30th, with winners advancing in bracket play and schools accumulating a point-per-match win tally en route to Friday’s finale. The most overall points earned after the last birdie was played would net that school an IAAM Championship.
Expectations were high as St. Paul’s School for Girls has been hoisting badminton championship banners since 2018, while Bryn Mawr was looking to ace their perfect regular season with the ultimate prize, a school title.
In the singles opening round, Eloise Rose from St. Paul’s and Garrison Forest’s Kothari each earned 1st round byes at the one and two ranked positions, respectively.
On the doubles courts, sixteen sets of doubles partners dueled in a play-in round for spots to compete in the tournament. Once that was established, thirty-two first-round doubles teams took a swing at advancing, and at the end of the day the field was cut in half.
The early leaderboard totals on Wednesday had Bryn Mawr with 6 earned points, and St. Paul’s nipping at their heels with 5 points. John Carroll and Notre Dame Prep accrued 4 points each, while Maryvale Prep and Roland Park Country School earned 3 points apiece. Friends School, Garrison Forest, and Glenelg Country acquired 2 points each in match wins, as St. Timothy’s stayed in the fight with 1 point on the board.
As day two of the tournament progressed, the front runners began to pull away from the pack. Heavy hitters Bryn Mawr and reigning champs St. Paul’s knotted up the leaderboard earning 12 overall points each, setting the stage for an epic Friday finale. The next in line were Notre Dame Prep with 7 points and John Carroll with 6.
In singles action, Thursday’s matches established who would vie in Friday’s final four, and the results were upset-free. The 1st through 4th seed quartet stayed true to their rankings, and Friday’s semi-finals pitted #1 seed Rose against #4 seed Maeve Mulhern from Notre Dame Prep. The other singles showdown would see #2 seed Kothari versus #3 seed Celeste Flores from Bryn Mawr. Both matchups had the potential to play a pivotal role in the overall school standings and the race for a championship.
On the doubles front, a string of underdog upsets from the #21 seed, St. Paul’s Fifi Johnson and Devyn Simon, landed them a berth in the semi-finals, giving the Gators a potential edge with two doubles teams still standing. Johnson and Simon would face a tough matchup in the Mawrtians #1 seeded Kai and Thadani. The other match would see Skye Linkroum and Julia Reifsnyder from Friends School take on #6 seed Augusta Burger and Amelia Pion from St. Paul’s.
In the end, Friday's semi-final results paved the way for a championship head-to-head of the number 1 and 2 seeds in both singles and doubles.
Kai and Thandani sealed the doubles victory, and the overall championship for Bryn Mawr, beating out Linkroum and Reifsnyder. The crucial win left Bryn Mawr with fourteen overall points on the leaderboard to St. Paul’s thirteen.
In singles, Kothari held on to edge out top-seeded Rose and she credits her success to being pushed daily in practice.
“Winning the singles tournament has been the goal since my season ended last year, losing to my own teammate in the second round of play,” said Kothari, whose teammate Bruna Lu would go on to win her own singles title in 2024. “This win was a culmination of hard work and I would not be able to have beaten such great competition without the direction of my coaches and the support of my teammates. While I won this match on the court, this was a win reflective of my entire team.”