Athletes representing École Ste-Marie from Azilda, École St-Paul in Lively and Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School dominated the recent St Anne Angels Intermediate Badminton Tournament, capturing a combined 17 of the top 20 placements across five divisions of play.

The Ste-Marie boys quartet of Luca Chartrand, Théo Lalonde, Ty Bélanger and Jackson Barrette accounted for the success of the Rayside-Bafour school, with Chartrand and Lalonde earning gold and silver in Boys Singles play and Bélanger and Lalonde defeating Chartrand and Barrette in the Boys Doubles final.

"Me and Théo do club badminton (Sudbury Jr Badminton Club) and Ty is naturally good at a lot of things - and we're all really athletic and that helps," explained Chartrand of the Ste-Marie success.

The Boys Doubles gold medal affair featured a matchup seen many times over at their own school, with Bélanger and Lalonde prevailing this time around. "It's usually neck and neck," said Bélanger.

"We had to hit our shots, pick the corners, make them run around - and hit our drop shots."

His preference lying in the singles game, Chartrand noted some of the tactical changes required in adding a partner to the mix on what is only a slightly larger court size.

"In doubles, it's all about coordination and teamwork," he said. "If you're positioned wrong, then they can mess up your partner."

A member of the highly successful Sudbury U15 AAA Wolves team these past few years, Bélanger is thankful for the advice he has garnered from schoolmates who are not committed to hockey on most every weekend of the winter, the Ste-Marie boys sharing plenty of tips between them.

"When you're smashing, you want to flick your wrist so that it doesn't go straight, it goes down," said Bélanger. "Stuff like that - and then proper placement (of the birdie), drop shots - they taught me a bit."

Like Bélanger, the Lo-Ellen pairing of Lia Gallo (soccer / hockey) and Mattia Mullen (basketball) would rely on a great deal of athleticism in achieving badminton success, with Gallo sweeping all three categories in which she competed (Girls Singles; Girls Doubles with Mullen; Mixed Doubles with Jack O'Connell) and Mullen adding a bronze medal in mixed play (with Owen Kolari) to her first place finish with Gallo.

"Part of the curriculum in gym is badminton so our teacher (Kevin Mackay) put together a tournament for our class," explained Mullen, a member of the Sudbury U14 Storm team that recently claimed gold at the Basketball Ontario Provincials.

"That's kind of where we learned to play together. After the tournament, he took us aside and gave us a few pointers on who should take what shot and how we could support each other better."

Thankfully, the Gallo - Mullen fit was a seamless one, with each of the grade eight students at Lo-Ellen complementing the other in terms of style of play. "Lia is taller so she's better at being closer to the net and smashing straight down," said Mullen.

"I would be at the back so that I can take my time to read where it (the birdie) was coming and then sending it to their back (court). It took us a few games to figure that out but once we figured it out, we played really well together."

Following are the top four finishers in each of the five divisions at the tournament:

Boys Singles
1st - Luca Chartrand (Ste-Marie)
2nd - Théo Lalonde (Ste-Marie)
3rd - Jesse Jobin (Bishop Carter)
4th - Ewan Haung (Lo-Ellen)

Girls Singles
1st - Lia Gallo (Lo-Ellen)
2nd - Sophia Bertrand (St-Paul)
3rd - Allyson Ouimet (Lo-Ellen)
4th - Izabella Guignard (Marymount)

Boys Doubles
1st - Ty Bélanger/Théo Lalonde (Ste-Marie)
2nd - Luca Chartrand/Jackson Barrette (Ste-Marie)
3rd - Anderson Marolt/Olivier Lapointe (St-Paul)
4th - Nathan Hachey/Jack O'Connell (Lo-Ellen)

Girls Doubles
1st - Lia Gallo/Mattia Mullen (Lo-Ellen)
2nd - Sophia Bertrand/Chloé Boucher (St-Paul)
3rd - Abby Lanthier/Isabella Rocca (Marymount)
4th - Alysson Ouimet/Sophie Loiselle (Lo-Ellen)

Mixed Doubles
1st - Lia Gallo/Jack O'Connell (Lo-Ellen)
2nd - Sophia Bertrand/Anderson Marolt (St-Paul)
3rd - Mattia Mullen/Owen Kolari (Lo-Ellen)
4th - Chloé Boucher/Luca Boucher (St-Paul)