M-A’s Badminton team lost 9-21 to Aragon on Thursday last week at senior night. While the team lost their last game of the season, they put up a good fight and are looking ahead towards the Peninsula Athletic League (PAL) Championships.
The night began with a celebration of the 2023-2024 Badminton Team seniors: Andrew Ahn, Rosemary Huang, Alex Chan, Minh Tien Nguyen, Kevin Jiang, Faith Teo, Sam Adelberg, and Nat Barman. Before the matches began, the team congratulated the seniors’ hard work, college acceptances, and wished them well in their future endeavors.
Going into the game, M-A knew Aragon would be a tough nut to crack, having a record of 9-2 and being the second-best team in the league. M-A Badminton Head Coach Fitzgerald Geonzon told his players to “be present, be in the moment, and leave everything on the court.”
With eight courts to play in at a time, the gym was abuzz with scattered applause, encouragement from coaches, and the ever-present sound of shoes squeaking on the gym floor.
Some games were unbridled victories for the M-A team. Team Captains Huang and junior Addison Youngblood took back-to-back wins, 21-13 and 21-15, to earn three points for M-A in the first seed of the mixed doubles section. Huang said after her game, “[Today] I played mixed for the first time officially. Addison and I had really good rotation and communication in the game.”
Other games were much closer. In the girls double second seed, with Teo and freshman Kylie Lam, the first set narrowly went to Aragon in a 20-22 game. Not deterred, Lam and Teo played on, taking the next two sets 21-19 and 21-16 to win the match and earn two points for the team.
Unfortunately, for as many games that M-A won, Aragon won two. One such game was the first seed of the boys doubles, with Jiang and junior Burke Montague-Alamin. After a close first set at 16-21, they faced a devastating 5-21 loss, losing three points to Aragon. Even if the scores were closer in other matches, it was not enough, and Aragon took the contest.
“You can kind of sense when your opponent is better than you, and some people would get discouraged and stop trying. The team was able to push themselves and make it tough on the opponent. They weren’t giving Aragon an easy way to win,” said Coach Geonzon.
Even though the team lost, spirits were still high, and the team is looking forward to the PAL Championships at Aragon. “Unfortunately, the team lost, but I feel like we’re going to do really well for the upcoming PALs,” Youngblood said after the tournament.
