After a crushing 14-1 defeat at the hands of Westmoor, the Aragon badminton team (3-3 overall) bested San Mateo (2-4 overall) 12-3 on March 23.
Says head coach Linda Brown, “We went into practice hard yesterday and [tried] to clean up some of the things we were doing incorrectly.”
The Dons were able to sweep the Bearcats in both boys doubles and mixed doubles.
The three boys doubles pairs kept San Mateo to less than 14 points in all six games.
In boys singles, Freshman Kai Xu battled against San Mateo freshman Trevor Tan. Despite his best efforts, Xu lost 6-21 in the first game and 8-21 in the second.
“He is certainly a very experienced opponent that has trained for many years. I had a very slim chance of winning,” says Xu. “You just have to try your best and set a point goal for yourself and try to reach that. My goal was eight points and I’m glad I was successful in that goal.”
Aragon Junior Jeremy Liu defeated Charles Xiao, holding Xiao to just two points in the final game. Dons senior Tyler Ong was also able to beat his opponent 21-4 in the second game.
Despite their loss, Aragon’s girls doubles tandem of senior Geth Wu and junior Kinako Miyake battled in a hard fought match. After losing 17-21 in the first match, the girls began to regain their rhythm late in the second match after coming back from a 15-20 point deficit, tying the game at 20. Despite ultimately losing in deuces, the two fought hard in the final points of the game.
“[San Mateo] was very skilled at noticing our weakness and they took the opportunity and attacked us with it,” says Wu. “Our weakness was that my team and I made a lot of mistakes. We realized that in the first game and then we cleaned up our act and it got better from there because the score was much better.
On Mar. 30, the Dons will face off against Carlmont (3-2 overall).
“We lost to them 7-8 at their house [on Mar. 14],” says Brown, “[So] we’re probably gonna take a look at the ladder [that] Carlmont sent us and selectively try and choose the games that we [want to] win.”
