By Tom Schardin, Staff Writer

The Burnsville badminton team had enough firepower to make it out of the first round at state, but not enough to knock off the top seed.

The Blaze’s season ended on May 13 in the quarterfinals with a 5-2 loss to top-seeded St. Paul Harding.

The eighth-seeded Blaze earned a 5-2 victory over ninth-seeded Minneapolis South to earn a shot at the eventual state champion.

“Against Harding, I thought we played as well as we could,” said Blaze coach Jeff Limke. “They’re a good team and they took advantage of any mistakes we made. We knew we had to play just about perfect for us to beat them.”

The Blaze finished the team portion of the season with a 5-11 overall mark.

The state individual tournament is being today, May 15 at Harding High School. Last year, the Blaze had the state doubles champion in then-seniors Michelle Teigland and Lindsey Mortinson.

In the loss to Harding, the Blaze won two of three doubles matches, but was swept in singles.

Earning wins for the Blaze were seniors Natalie Leiker and Amy Lindblad at No. 1 doubles (21-19, 16-21, 22-20) and the No. 3 team of Molly Jones and Lara Farat (21-18, 17-21, 21-19).

Against South, the Blaze won three of four singles matches and two of three in doubles.

Leiker and Lindblad were again winners (21-18, 21-12), while seniors Lisa Dennis and Soogin Moon won in the No. 2 spot (18-21, 21-14, 21-11).

Leiker and Lindblad took a 9-7 record in the state individual tourney, while Moon and Dennis are 11-4 on the season.

In singles, junior Bea Soderholm won 21-18, 21-9 at the No. 2 spot. Senior Emily Zhang won 21-12, 21-13 at third singles, while junior Crystal Colin was victorious at the fourth spot (21-15, 21-11).

Colin finished the season with a 5-2 mark and should be one of the top singles players for the Blaze next spring, along with Soderholm.

“Against South, we took control of the points early and dictated the matches for the most part,” said Limke. “I was very happy with how we approached that match. The girls were determined to make up for losing to South earlier in the season.

South beat the Blaze 4-3 back on April 21.

Harding beat Eden Prairie 5-2 in the state title match to win its seventh state title in the past eight seasons.