Lina Kwon
Staff Writer
Despite the 11 hours of relentless serves and excessive hunger, Costa Badminton successfully completed their last tournament of the season.
The Mira Costa Badminton team competed in an away tournament on April 21 at Cerritos High School. Although several of the top players of the team were absent from the tournament, the Mustangs managed to place high in all of their events.
The tournament started off with mixed doubles event. The two captains, senior Henry Yu and junior Lulu Yu, teamed up to compete against their biggest rival Arcadia High, eventually placing fourth after losing to their opponents.
“Even though it wasn’t our best game, I’m glad that we still got to place in mixed doubles,” Henry Yu said. “We were also missing some of our key players and that really gave us a hard time.”
For the first time since she has joined the team, sophomore Alisa Chen placed first in girls singles after defeating all her opponents from Cerritos, Arcadia and Long Beach Poly High School. She’s proud of all her achievements so far and is ready to compete in more tournaments in the coming years, said Chen.
“At first, I was overwhelmed by all the competent players from different schools,” Chen said. “But as I started defeating my opponents one by one, I gained confidence that assured me I’d win first place at the end of the tournament.”
Girls doubles duo senior Audrey Kim and Lulu Yu also put up solid performances to smash their opponents and ultimately placed second to Cerritos. Sophomore Julia Foster entered into semi-finals but failed to place in the event.
“I’m really impressed by the hard work we put into each of the games in this tournament,” Lulu Yu said. “The results weren’t as satisfying but I’m proud of how far we’ve grown as a team.”
For boys, singles player Frederico Manalo won first place in consolation, as well as freshman Bhavin Patel coming in second in consolation. It was also the first time for Manalo to ever place in a tournament.
“The team overall was pretty good today, [as] we did much better than last year according to McKenna,” freshman Andrew Liu said. “I will definitely take my loss as a learning experience to perform better in future matches.”
By the end of the tournament, Costa boys doubles partners Tiger Hao and Henry Yu fell short and lost to Arcadia in semi-finals. While Hao and Yu struggled to retrieve their opponents shots, the Apaches caught Costa off guard by serving high up the net, eventually shutting out the Mustangs 21-9.
“I tried my best throughout the tournament but I couldn’t manage to pull off solid rallies,” Hao said. “I’m a little upset that today was our last tournament of the season but I’m looking forward to the CIF matches we’ll be playing soon.”
The Mustangs now hold an overall record of 4-2 and will next compete in the CIF Team Championship that starts on May 7. Head coach McKenna Wilson is proud of the development and improvement the team has shown the past months.
“Everyone in the team has shown significant improvements over the past few months and I’m thrilled that we will be once again competing in the CIF playoffs as a team,” Wilson said. “I’m confident that our players will be able to play at their best during the CIFs and bring home trophies.”
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