It's rare that a junior-aged athlete qualifies for an Ontario high school sports championship to compete against seniors, but Kathy Liu made the grade yesterday.

The 16-year-old Grade 10 student from Earl of March rallied to defeat favoured, but injured, Dorothy Lui of Mother Teresa 3-15, 15-11, 15-8 in the girls' singles final of the National Capital Secondary Schools Athletic Association senior badminton championships at the RA Centre.

They both earned a trip to the Ontario high school championships May 4-6 at Timmins, as did the finalists in each of the other four classes.

"It's pretty amazing," Kathy Liu said. "It a good way to end the badminton season."

On Tuesday, Dorothy Lui won the girls' West Conference final, but Kathy Liu reversed the scores yesterday.

"I had a good chance (to do well)," Kathy Liu said. "There was no pressure. I just played my best ... and fought for every point."

Ridgemont's Joseph Rogers captured his third consecutive boys' singles title, defeating a tired Thomas Grace of Immaculata 15-7, 15-2.

Grace had two challenging matches before the final in the double-elimination championship, including a three-set, 70-minute loss to Rogers.

March captured its second city title when Jessica Jiang and Caleb Hui defeated juniors Katherine Cheng Li and Alex Norman of Beatrice Desloges 15-3, 15-6 in mixed doubles.

Bell's Jason Wong and Feng Wang downed Merivale's Brian Kwok and John Trinh 15-8, 15-10 for the boys' doubles title.

Sisters Kimberley and Courtney Leung of Sir Robert Borden won gold in girls' doubles with a 15-12, 15-8 victory over Maya and Dalia Levin of De La Salle.

(This article was written by Martin Cleary. It was published on The Citizen April 22, 2006, page C8)