Lina Kwon
Staff Writer
After long rallies during the 21 games, the Mustangs served Cabrillo High School an upsetting loss.
Costa’s Badminton team smashed Cabrillo High School 16-5 on Mar. 19 at the Manhattan Beach Badminton Club for its first victory of the season.
“Cabrillo came out stronger than we anticipated today,” senior Audrey Mei said. “Regardless, I think we managed to play well against their strongest players, and our weeks of hard practice definitely helped us win.”
The game kicked off with mixed doubles events. Costa’s junior partners Lulu Yu and Moose Cohn along with duo Scarlett Luo and Eric Mei competed against some of Cabrillo’s most competent players, winning all of their events 21-12, 21-11 and 21-8, 21-17, respectively.
“Overall, all of the players in our team played great, and I think it’s a good preparation for our upcoming match against Diamond Bar since they’re known as the reigning champions,” Yu said. “I hope that we can play at our best on Thursday.”
Girls singles players Yu and Luo went undefeated during the entirety of four games. The first event started with Cabrillo’s serve to which Yu responded with an instant smash. After scoring multiple birdies to shut out the Conquistadors 21-8, Yu continuously performed her semi-offensive drop shots until the opponent failed to hit the shuttle above the net, bringing the final score to 21-6.
“I was really comfortable with pace of the game,” Yu said. “I was playing at a faster pace than my opponent, which I think really contributed to the win.”
In addition to Yu’s sturdy performance, Luo successfully carried the momentum forward by consistently focusing on the movement of the shuttle and rushing forward and back to retrieve her opponent’s shots. Luo finished her first game with a score of 21-3. Ending the last rally in her second game with a solid smash to the ground, Luo ended up on top 21-6.
“I’m very proud of my successful play today,” Luo said. “Because girls normally like to play doubles more than singles, I personally think Cabrillo had weaker players competing in doubles compared to singles.”
In girls doubles events, duo Audrey Kim and Audrey Mei made an aggressive starting serve but lost points for hitting the shuttle out of the line shortly after. Audrey Mei later overcame her mistake by relentlessly sending the shuttle high up to her opponent’s baseline, bringing home final scores of 21-18 and 21-17.
“I didn’t play my best today,” junior Alisa Chen said. “But, I look forward to having better teamwork and better communication with my partner in the upcoming games.”
Despite his back and ankle injury, boys singles player Eric Mei made quick jump smashes and dominated the front of the court throughout the first game, coming out on top 21-6. Forcing his opponent to perform a high lift, Mei carried out multiple winning smashes to end his last game victorious 21-13.
“Today’s game went well but I feel like there was still room for improvement,” Eric Mei said. “Diamond Bar High School has been the champion of CIF for the last couple of years, so I know it’ll be a tough match. But I’m going to try my best anyways.”
As for boys doubles, senior partners Tiger Hao and Henry Yu had a collaborative teamwork to defeat their opponents in all of their events. Serving high to catch the opponents off guard, Hao and Yu maintained good body balance to smash the shuttle at a steep angle and completed their games 21-12 and 21-14. Left-handed duo senior Ray Kim and freshman Andrew Liu ultimately fell to Cabrillo in both of their games by scores of 21-13 and 21-19.
“I wasn’t able to keep up physically and started getting tired after the first game,” Henry Yu said. “My partner really [had] my back during the game, and he was the one to really step up and start putting away the points, as he had strong back power.”
The Mustangs now hold an overall record of 1-1 and will next take on Diamond Bar High School on Mar. 22 at an away game. The team believes the match against Diamond Bar would be their biggest challenge of the season, according to coach McKenna Wilson.
“Although we’re still switching some players around to figure out our niche, we are getting stronger every match we play,” Wilson said. “I look forward to kids learning from their matches, seeing what they’re doing wrong and coming up with suggestions, and I hope they gain some different mentality than last year.”
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