The Tritons Take a Win and Loss

On Sunday February 28th, The UC San Diego Badminton Club went up against last season’s first place team USC as well as UCR. We knew USC would prove to be a tough match, but our players knew that it wasn’t impossible to win. As for UCR, many of their female players were not able to make it to the match, allowing us to give our younger players an opportunity to represent our school and gain valuable playing experience against UCR’s veteran players.

During the match against USC, 8 out of 15 nailbiter games went the full three sets. These notable matches included many new players, including a close singles game that went to third set with freshman Kyle Ng from UC San Diego with scores 21-18, 20-22, and 21-16. It was Kyle’s first league match of the season, and he proved to be a promising player in the future with his fast reflexes and movement. Exchange student Misaki Mori has proved to be a valuable asset to this years’ team. With so far being undefeated in league matches, she unfortunately experienced her first loss against number one seed Jacqueline Ko in Women’s Singles from USC. Misaki put up a tough match tiring out Jacqueline and took it to a third set with long rallies and smart shot choices. With a final score of 21-19, 20-22, and 18-21, the game clearly could have gone either way. And finally, in arguably one of the closest matches of the day, freshman Chris Do Pham and Justin Yur took on USC doubles two pair Dustin Tso and Ryan Tam. After 3 sets of fast paced shots, smashes, and yelling, our boys narrowly lost with a final score of 22-24, 21-19, and 23-21. Our pair put up a good fight and proved that even though they didn’t win, they were still a strong competitor. While our team took a loss with a final score of 4-11, many matches were close and could have swayed the game in our favor.

Against UC Riverside, many freshmen and first year transfer students were given their first opportunity to represent the Tritons. It was Jason Ho’s first league match, and he took on UCR’s Ryan Wales–one of their more experienced players. Although Jason lost, he spent over 45 minutes on court and was able to take his singles match to three games with a score of 13-21, 21-18, 17-21. Freshman Kyle Ng also paired up with returning member Vincent Tsui and won their doubles match in straight sets against UCR’s Ray Wu and Adrian Li, with a score of 21-15, 21-8. Overall, UC San Diego beat UCR with a score of 10-5.

Overall, our team experienced a win and a loss. Our experienced players played well, like they always have, and showed that no matter what, as long as the game was not over, there was still a chance to win. While we did not come out on top for both of those matches our younger and newer players showed much spirit and promise to the future of the team.