By Maggie Deverux
Executive Sports Editor
The girls’ badminton team sent three girls to state this spring: doubles partners sophomore Shea Gallus and senior Karly Grouwinkel, and single player junior Jackie Hertrich.
After losing her first two games to opponents from Neuqua Valley and Leyden High School, Hertrich was eliminated from the tournament. Grouwinkel and Gallus, however, performed above expectations.
Grouwinkel and Gallus won their first and second round matches against Conant and Glenbard West. Unfortunately, they went on to lose their third and fourth round games to Downers Grove North and Glenbard South. Even though they lost, their performance was still an achievement.
“I was not expecting to do that good,” Grouwinkel said. “So it was a really good surprise.”

Glenbard West’s doubles team was seeded fifth overall, so beating them put the girls in the top 16. Glenbard West also took sixth place in state in the doubles competition.
The players were not the only ones satisfied with their performance. Coach Jean Rezny was also “extremely pleased” with the doubles performance She also said that state was a good learning experience for Hertrich.
The girls badminton team as a whole placed second in the East Division and fifth overall in conference, which was very talented this year. Buffalo Grove took seond in state, Fremd took third and Conant and Palatine split for ninth.
But despite being the underdog coming into state, the girls’ delivered strong performances.
“They just went in very positive,” Rezny said. “And everything just clicked.”