HIGH ACHIEVERS: Team NCSSAA earns two silver, one bronze medals at OFSAA badminton championships

By Martin Cleary

Communication.

It’s an important element in life and especially in sports.

Celine Karavally and Aayush Saha know all about communication and its evil twin miscommunication.

The Merivale High School badminton players casually talked about forming a mixed doubles team for the 2024 National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association season. But it never happened.

Karavally thought Saha wanted to focus on boys’ singles, so she never pursued the idea of forming a team. Saha believed Karavally was more interested in playing girls’ singles and didn’t give much thought again to making a mixed doubles team.

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At some point in that season, they both had a good laugh when they discovered both players really wanted to play mixed doubles in 2024, but neither one raised the topic again.

“Last year, we thought we would play mixed, but there was a miscommunication,” Karavally explained in a phone interview this week. “We both thought that each other was going to play singles. We talked later that we should have played mixed.”

It was a miscommunication that was completely avoided for the 2025 high school season. Instead, they had proper communication off the badminton court to partner strong technical skills on the court. The result was a season of medals and titles.

After winning the Far West and West Conference titles and the NCSSAA city finals without losing a match, Karavally and Saha posted four straight victories at the OFSAA provincial high school championships in Burlington before their only loss earned them the mixed doubles silver medal.

The gold-medal match was exceptionally challenging for the Merivale team as the Marauders faced the York Region Athletic Association pair of Emma Meng, the No. 1 ranked U19 junior in girls’ singles and mixed doubles in Canada, and Ryan Huang, the No. 7 ranked U19 junior in boys’ singles in the country.

Karavally, 17, and Saha, 16, more than held their own as Meng and Huang won the championship match 21-10, 21-17. Saha is ranked No. 4 in the country for boys’ U17 singles, while Karavally is unranked in girls’ singles or doubles, but has played at the national level.

After losing their opening match at the 2024 Canadian junior badminton championships in U17 mixed doubles, Karavally and Saha reached the consolation final.

The NCSSAA badminton team also produced two other medals, which both came in the boys’ singles draw. (Badminton is a varsity sport, meaning it’s an open competition for student-athletes in all grades.)

Reath Roth of Colonel By, who was the 2023 silver medallist as a Grade 9 student-athlete, and defending OFSAA champion Vedant Sardeshpande of St. Joseph placed second and third respectively in boys’ singles to capture the silver and bronze medals.

In both cases, Roth and Sardeshpande lost to York Region’s Asher Bedi, who is the top-ranked junior boys’ singles player in Canada.

Roth won four of his five matches in the A draw. His only loss was to Bedi in the final. Sardeshpande captured three straight wins before losing to Bedi in the semifinals. A pair of wins on the A consolation side brought him the bronze medal.

Karavally, meanwhile, had reached her first OFSAA championship in 2024 and played in the girls’ singles’ B draw final.

“I had higher expectations than last year because I had improved,” Karavally said. “My goal was to go farther and play better. I recorded some of my games and realized my footwork and shots had improved.”

Saha narrowly missed qualifying for his first OFSAA championship as a Grade 9 student as he lost to Sardeshpande in the tight 2024 NCSSAA boys’ singles final.

After receiving a first-round bye and then defeating Cyera Pilon and Morgan Lemay of the North Eastern Ontario Athletic Association and Avery Auyang and An Shi Wang of the York Region, Karavally and Saha qualified for the playoff round.

They defeated Sara Wang and Leonard Yank of the Toronto District Secondary School Athletic Association in the quarterfinals and Annie Liu and Cheney Wang of the Region of Peel Secondary School Athletic Association in the semifinals. The OFSAA website didn’t provide match scores for the badminton championships.

For the gold-medal final, Karavally and Saha wanted to put forward their best effort.

“I knew they were very good. Our main goal was to give it our all. After the games, I did not feel bad. We put in the effort and tried our best,” explained Karavally, a Grade 11 student-athlete. “I’m very proud (of the silver medal). Even though it wasn’t gold, we made it that far. It was a big accomplishment. I had an opportunity to play higher-ranked players.”

“OFSAA was a big goal,” said Saha, a Grade 10 student-athlete. “I went in to have fun and try our best. We got in the final and that was the good part. I looked at the draw and saw we had a chance to get to the final, but we never put that expectation on us.

“Honestly, we knew it (the final) would be a losing fight. But we tried our best and had fun. The silver medal was surprising. I came to have a fun time with my Ottawa friends. We came home with the silver and that was a huge honour. I’ll try to do better next year.”

Saha was anxious to compete in his first OFSAA championship, so he switched to mixed doubles from singles this season.

“I wanted to play mixed to get to OFSAA,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday as he travelled to Moncton for this weekend’s scheduled Canadian junior U17 and U19 badminton championships. “I knew she (Karavally) would be a good partner. I asked her if she would be OK with mixed.”

“I wanted a change this year,” Karavally added. “I feel I’m better at doubles and mixed than singles. I thought I’d give it a try.

“It feels nice to know someone is behind you, if you’re not there. I’ve known Aayush on and off the court and we’ve played a couple of tournaments.”

When Karavally mentions it’s good to have someone behind you, that also includes Merivale badminton coach Jon LeBoutillier, who is more familiar with girls’ basketball, rugby and softball rather than the court sport.

“He helped us a lot,” Karavally said about LeBoutillier. “He doesn’t play badminton, but got involved as much as he could. He put in so much effort and that’s really, really important.”

On May 4, a day after the three-day OFSAA championships, Karavally, Saha and Roth found more success at the one-day Victor Ontario provincial open badminton championships in Woodbridge.

Karavally won all three of her round-robin matches in women’s singles for the gold medal and two of three matches with Saha for the mixed doubles silver medal.

Roth combined with Rui Yang Stanley Zhang to claim the men’s doubles gold medal, while Saha and Kevin Wilson placed fourth.

The NCSSAA team also earned these results at the OFSAA championships:

· Boys’ singles – Peter Cheng, six wins, three losses, B draw semifinals.

· Girls’ singles – Yutong Wang, 3-2, B draw final; Jade Rozen, 2-3, C draw quarterfinals; Nadine Buchanan, 2-3, B draw consolation round two.

· Boys’ doubles – Michael Qu and Kevin Chang, 3-2, A draw consolation semifinals; Adrian Tang and Jason Li, 4-3, B draw consolation round three.

· Girls’ doubles – Rachel Huang and Molly Wu, B draw consolation semifinals; Gabriella Khalid and Isabelle Seto, 4-3, B draw consolation round three.

· Mixed doubles – Stuti Manair and Braylon Yu, 4-3, B draw consolation semifinals.