Bilkent Takes Third Place in Interuniversity Badminton Tournament
The national Second Division Interuniversity Badminton Tournament took place in Belek, Antalya on March 16-20. The newly formed Bilkent team, a mixed squad of women and men, participated in the tournament after the university's absence from the event for 10 years. The Bilkent team was coached by Mert Aydoğmuş, an ex-national player and coach who is now an assistant professor at Kırşehir Ahi Evran University.
As might be expected, the members of the Bilkent team were excited and a bit nervous as they went into the tournament last week. However, with encouragement from Dr. Aydoğmuş, they were able to overcome their anxiety and performed extremely well against university teams experienced in the sport. The final qualifying matches went down to the last minute in every case.
At the close of the tournament, the Bilkent team secured a place in the semifinals from among the 20 highly competitive university teams and succeeded in winning the third place cup. In addition, team captain Görkem Kaya ranked fourth among the 31 players in the individual competition category.
Bilkent Team Match Results
Bilkent University - Manisa Celal Bayar University, 3-2
Bilkent University - Batman University, 4-1
Bilkent University - Samsun On Dokuz Mayıs University, 3-2
Bilkent University - Erzurum Atatürk University, 5-0
Bilkent University - Kırıkkale University, 4-1
Bilkent University - Cyprus Girne American University, 0-5
Bilkent University - Mersin University, 2-3
Bilkent Badminton Team Members:
Women
Kübra Demir
Pınar Öner
Bilge Acun
Kübra Yediyıldız
Ayşegül Kılıç
Melek Gizem Yazıcı
Nurbanu Akalın
Men
Görkem Kaya
Mete Can Özçörekçi
Barış Özdemir
Yağız Bayramoğlu
M. Sami Şimşekli
Hüseyin Reşit Onur Erdem