Future bright with local talent

By MARK HUNTER, Daily News Sports Reporter
February 12 2007

Whenever TRU WolfPack badminton head coach Brad Pape wants to see into the team's future, he looks towards Brennan Arduini.

Murray Mitchell / Daily News TRU'S CLARK CHEN reaches for a return while playing with WolfPack teammate Brennan Arduini in a badminton battle against the Langara Falcons in BCCAA action Saturday at TRU Gym.

The WolfPack played host to a British Columbia Colleges Athletics Association tournament on the weekend, the final tournament of the BCCAA regular season. The provincial tournament goes Saturday and Sunday at Douglas College in Coquitlam.

Arduini, one of six rookies on the eight-person TRU badminton team, graduated from South Kamloops Secondary in 2006. With a rejuvenated high school program throughout the city, Pape is expecting players like Arduini to be the team's future.

"In the next few years, we're going to see a lot of local kids coming through the system," Pape said. "I think we're going to have some good up-and-coming players next season."

Arduini is one of two locals on the team, along with Sa-Hali grad Ming Wong. Arduini was eighth in men's singles at the TRU tournament and also competed in men's doubles with partner Clark Chen, finishing 10th. TRU finished the seven-team event tied for fifth.

South Kamloops, which won its fourth straight Okanagan junior badminton championship Thursday, will act as an unofficial feeder system for TRU. Ross Perkin, who coaches the Titans, also helps out with the WolfPack, giving some graduating players an in with the TRU team.

"We're going to get a lot of people from South Kam next year - we'll have a lot more people and we'll definitely be better," said Arduini, who was on the South Kam badminton team for four years, including the program's first season.

In that first season - if you want to call it that - a handful of interested players showed up, and there wasn't a schedule. The next season, more people showed up and now, four years later, the program is thriving.

"There's a lot more people getting into it now," Arduini, a sciences student, said. "It's getting bigger compared to when we first started a team four years ago. There's going to be a lot more high-calibre players coming in from the high schools in town."

Pape said he struggles recruiting players from outside Kamloops, with most Lower Mainland students usually going to colleges in Vancouver. While that has made life more difficult for TRU, Perkin and the other high school coaches in town are helping the WolfPack's cause.
 
"This is the first time we've had a coach who has coached the high school players all the way through from the junior years until grad," Pape said. "It's a huge benefit because (Perkin) knows these players, we're getting his players coming up."

Many of TRU's players are international students - the team has three players from Taiwan, one from China and one from Indonesia - who had no plans to play badminton before arriving at TRU, but ended up forming the heart of the team.

With a new crop of talent coming to the team, Pape plans to stick around and help it reach new heights.

"I think we're going to have a really strong team next year," he said. "It's hard for us to compete against some of the Lower Mainland teams, but I think we're going to have a balanced team."