The UC San Diego(UCSD) badminton team members woke up bright and early to make it to UCLA for the year’s first competitive meeting. The event took place on Saturday January 11th, 2020 at UCLA’s Student Activity Center. UCSD played against UCLA, Cal Poly SLO, UCR and CSULB.

UCSD won only 2 of 15 matches against UCLA. Men’s doubles 1 pair Lawrence Leung and EuJynn Tang narrowly won against UCLA’s Bryan Pan and Jordi Supandi 21-14, 19-21 and 21-16. Women’s doubles 3 pair Crystal Doan and Abby Liang won against Alice Lai and Catherine Tan in another close game, 21-15, 15-21, 21-12. UCSD won 14-0 against UCR with some games being defaults due to UCR’s lack of players to field all their events. UCSD also only lost 2 games against CSULB. Junior Leilani Lu’s women’s single’s match was quite close and going to 3 games, 21-16, 19-21, 21-11, but she managed to secure the win for UCSD. UCSD also beat SLO 14-0 with a blowout performance in the mixed doubles category with the opponents not breaking 10 points. Men’s singles produced some close games with first year Arnav Taneja winning 18-21, 21-19, 21-15.

This year’s first league match definitely reminds UCSD that dedication to the advancement of their skills is important and the team is definitely looking to tilt the 3rd deciding games their favor for the next league match meeting between the Southern California Schools. For now, UCSD looks forward to heading to the Anteater Collegiate Championships this coming weekend hosted at UCI in Irvine.