On Feb. 28, the Aragon badminton team defeated Woodside High School in an unofficial preseason scrimmage. The official season will open on March 12 against Menlo-Atherton High School.
This season, the team is facing two main changes: a loss of key players and a new gym. Says coach Linda Brown, “We’re younger; we graduated a lot of seniors.”
The new gym has greatly improved the productivity of practices. Brown explains, “Players will have more practice time because they’ll have more courts. The gym is bigger, eight courts instead of six, which means more people can be practicing, though we still have two practices…”
Notable players this season include seniors Nicky Tao, Jaehee Park, and Sam Bunarjo in addition to sophomore and 2012 CCS girls singles champion Candy Zhang. Says Brown, “They work with the other players and walk around and help with drills. They demonstrate, and they help with strategy.”
Says senior Sam Bunarjo, “When we were freshmen, the older people helped us with technique, so we try to do that now.”
Like in tennis, there are two styles of play in badminton: singles and doubles. Says Brown, “When you play singles, you have to rely on yourself. Doubles is much faster. One [player] is strong in a certain area, and you have to learn how to move on the court and play to your teammate’s strengths while maximizing the opponent’s weaknesses. There’s a lot more strategy.”
However, despite the similar natures of tennis and badminton, they have different rules and require different abilities. While tennis requires full use of the arm, badminton relies mostly on wrist movement. Brown says, “It’s good if you have good eye-hand coordination, but if you can’t learn how to relax your wrists then you lose power.”
Senior Jaehee Park adds, “A lot of athletes on this team play multiple sports, so we’re all in pretty good shape, but badminton is about using unique muscles that you have to break in. When I have soccer, my thighs get sore, but in badminton, it’s all the wrists.”
The Aragon badminton team has been undefeated for the past two seasons, and the team’s goal this season is to continue that winning streak.
