Irvine Valley College’s Lili Zhou defeated teammate Grace Peng (11-2, 11-9) to capture the 2005 Orange Empire Conference Badminton Singles Championship only to have Peng return the favor in doubles where she teamed up with Yuki Nakagawa to defeat Zhou and Etsuko Cabell (15-9, 15-3) in that portion of the tournament held at Santa Ana College on Friday.

Zhou, who won the singles championship and was a member of the state doubles championship team in 2002, advanced to the semifinals with easy wins over Fullerton College’s Hasanah Sagoleh (11-1, 11-0) and San Diego City College’s Ana Lozano (11-0, 11-0). In the semifinals Zhou knocked off teammate Yuki Nakagawa, 11-5, 11-3 before facing Peng in the finals.

Nakagawa finished fourth overall, falling to Yoko Suzuki of Grossmont in the third-place match (11-3, 11-5). Peng and Nakagawa advanced to the doubles finals with wins over Orange Coast College’s Hanna Vu and Kathy Nguyen (15-0, 15-1); San Diego City College’s Helen Phung and Lai Nguyen (15-3, 15-2) and Grossmont College’s Yoko Suzuki and Betty Hsu (15-1, 15-1) before facing their Lasers’ teammates, Zhou and Cabell, for the title.

The top eight singles players and the top six doubles teams advanced to the California Community College Commission On Athletics Badminton Championships that will be held at Fresno City College beginning this Thursday and running through Saturday.

Also qualifying for the state tournament in singles for the Lasers was Stephani Tran. Tran ended up coming in fifth place overall at the conference tournament.

Also qualifying in doubles were Tran and Bui. They finished sixth at the conference tournament.

Irvine Valley, which won the Southern California Regional final last week, is scheduled to face the top team from Northern California, Skyline, in the state team championship on Thursday in Fresno.