Kathleen Lougheed carried on in the Douglas College tradition of great women badminton players with a dominating win at the PacWest provincial championships.
Lougheed, who took over as player/coach of the storied Douglas badminton program following the abrupt departure of long-time head coach Al Mawani last month, dropped just one set en route to winning the PacWest women’s singles title at Kwantlen Polytechnic University last weekend.
Lougheed defeated Vancouver Island University’s Melissa Liew, last year’s national collegiate runner-up, in three sets, 21-17, 17-21, 21-12.
Lougheed swept her remaining competitors from Langara, Thompson Rivers and host Kwantlen Polytechnic in straight sets.
Lougheed’s win in the women’s singles was the ninth in 10 years for Douglas and sixth in a row following the graduation of five-time national champion RuiLin Huang.
Douglas was also well represented in the women’s division by Lyndsay Thompson in 2006 and ’07 and earlier by Cherry Ng, Allison Rice and Jennifer Wong.
Douglas did not compete in the team portion at the provincials.
Lougheed is expected to compete at the Canadian Colleges’ Athletic Association championship as part of the PacWest team from B.C.
But what happens following next week’s national badminton championships hosted by the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton is still to be decided, said Paul Cohee, director of educational services.
“The badminton program is on hold. We have to look at it closely,” Cohee said.
Cohee said the unexpected resignation by Mawani was sudden and contrary to earlier conversations with the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame coach.
“It caught us by surprise,” Cohee said.
