Badminton: Doubles team Kiersten Lee, Jaidith Pick leads six Oswego qualifiers back to state

Kiersten Lee and Jaidith Pick made a pact three years ago.

Let’s try badminton together.

“Me and Jaidith have been best friends, and we said ‘If you try out, I’ll try out,’” said Lee, like Pick, now an Oswego senior. “It ended up being a lot more than we expected. We got to be pretty good at it.”

Indeed they have.

Lee and Pick, who never played badminton competitively before high school, now are part of Oswego program history. They are leading Oswego’s six state qualifiers – matching last year’s program record number – to this weekend’s state tournament at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

Lee and Pick, Oswego’s No. 1 doubles team, are making their second straight trip to state, as is senior and No. 1 singles player Kate Pirc. Oswego edged T.F. South, 14-13.5, for the program’s first sectional title since 2015.

“It’s really exciting,” said Lee, who took third at sectionals with Pick. “Last year was the first year we had six girls qualify for state. It’s exciting to be going back.”

Also qualifying for state is senior Britney Sennes, third in singles at sectionals, and the doubles team of senior Shaye Gordon and junior Rachel Meurer, fourth at sectionals.

Oswego East, likewise, will be well-represented in Charleston. Sophomore Crystal Hwang and senior Kayla Bumalay are singles state qualifiers, as is the doubles team of juniors Ari Augustine and Sydney Granholm.

Pick recalls playing badminton in gym class before trying out freshman year.

“We weren’t all really friends when we first started playing, but we grew together and bonded by playing together,” Pick said. “It makes it fun to go out to practice every day.”

Opportunities to play outside school are not plentiful, but Lee, Pick and Pirc did take badminton lessons at Midwest Badminton Club in Naperville.

Oswego won its conference tournament for the ninth time in 11 years, and also took first at the Glenbard South Invite.

“I feel like we all really bonded this year,” Lee said. “We’ve all been on the team for four years, we’ve got to know each other really well. [Meurer] is the only junior. We’ve really clicked.”

The girls aren’t short on motivation this weekend, either.

Pirc lost both of her matches at state last year in straight sets, as did Lee and Pick.

“We didn’t do as well as we wanted to last year because we had never been there before and didn’t know what to expect,” Lee said. “Now that we know what the competition is like, hopefully we can go a little further.”

Her playing partner agrees.

“We kind of set the bar high for ourselves, especially with three juniors going to state,” Pick said. “It’s pushed us to be more successful this season.”