The University of Toronto Varsity Blues badminton team kicked off the OUA championship with a bang, qualifying seven players to the main event on Day 2.

The Blues had two men qualify for the main event based on finishing first or second in the qualifying pools. 

Allen Chee won all three matches in his pool with wins against John Lau (York) 21-9, 21-18, Eric Zhang (Queen's)  21-14, 21-19 and Linyang Zhang (Ottawa) 21-14, 21-9 and had a very solid performance throughout the day.  

Teammate Guanqiu Liu also qualified in pool play as he defeated Yifan Wei (Ottawa) 21-9, 21-14 and Danny Chen (York) 21-9, 21-8 and pushing Jacob Kao (McMaster) to the limit in a 15-21,21-17, 9-21 match.  Liu at times seemed like he was going to win the third game but in the end the more experienced Kao pulled through in the last part of the third game and secured the top spot in the pool

Team captain Jonathan Young had a rough time in his pool as he met Austin Flanagan (Ottawa) in his first match and lost 9-21, 9-21 and then won against Chuheng Xing (Queen's) 9-21, 21-14, 21-16 but then lost a close three game match against Ryerson's Vryan Kong 17-21, 21-15, 11-21 to finish third in his pool and not advance.

Christopher Ng also finished with a 1-2 record in his pool and finished third in his pool and did not advance.

In women's singles action, Toronto had 3-of-4 players qualify for the main event on Saturday. 

Yue Wang won all three of her matches defeating Christina Yun (Queen's) 21-7, 21-5, Ryerson's Chris Pinto 21-17, 21-10 and Chhiv Jing Yang (York) 21-11, 21-15 to finish first in her pool and advance to the main round as one of the seeds. 

Fellow rookie Shi Yi Lu qualified second in her pool with wins against McMaster's Nancy Wu 21-12, 21-10 and Ottawa's Emily McConnell 21-10, 21-15 and a loss to Avenie Lee (Ryerson) 14-21, 16-21

Alexandra Lloyd proved to be a very pleasant surprise as she defeated Ge hen (Queen's) 21-13,21-11 and Ottawa's Allison Tran 21-15, 21-17 but falling to No. 5 seed Joletta Cheung 13-21, 12-21 and thus finished second in her pool and qualified for main event.

The Blues also qualified two mixed doubles teams on Day 1.  

Adam Wolski and Teresa Dan proved to be a very pleasant surprise as they defeated Guelph's Chris Cheung and Kelsey Priestman 21-15, 21-9 and then also won against Carleton's Jason Chan and Vivian Lam 21-15, 21-9. They lost to the 5th seed Lee Follis and Adrienne Goldssworthy (Waterloo) 17-21, 13-21 and qualify for the main event on Saturday. 

Thanh Lam and Xue Jie Jing also qualified for the main event with a 2-1 record in pool play as they lost to No. 2 seed Kevin Tseng and Sarah Bowman (Ottawa) 2-21, 5-21 but then followed that up with wins against McMaster Simon Quach and Joyce Eng 21-11, 21-13 and Queen's John Chirnoff and Tina Zhang 21-19, 20-22, 21-16.

Full results