San Diego Mesa College’s women’s badminton team pushed their winning streak to three matches with a big conference win. The team hosted the San Diego City College Knights on Mar. 19 and emerged victorious, winning 19-2.
With this win, Mesa has been off to a strong start to the season. They have only lost once so far to badminton powerhouse, De Anza College. When asked about their success before the match, Head Coach June Andrews credited these wins to “really good veteran leadership,” with three strong players returning this season. She went on to add that they focused on adding strong players to strengthen the rest of the roster, “looking to win the conference and to make a run for that”, the state title.
The Olympians got a boost right from the start, as City College forfeited three points due to not being able to fill the spots for all their matchups. With this leg up, Mesa came out of the gates strong. Mesa swept all the singles matches with especially strong performances coming off the racquets of their number 1 and two starters, Sophomore Mylene Keophaseut and Freshman Emily Chindamay.
Sweeping all of the singles matches is not an easy task to accomplish. Emily Chindamay gave the reason for this success after the match. She stated, “A lot of the girls including myself, we all put in hard work at practice and on the weekend at the public courts…, and I feel like our close bond really ties us together as a team.”
This team bond showed as the Olympians went on to win all but one of the doubles matches. The doubles pair Mylene Keosphaseaut and Emily Chindamay found success in both of their doubles matches. Neither athlete lost a single set in their six total matches against the Knights. The doubles pair Christina Nguyen and Tien Nguyen fought hard in both their sets against Nicona Maruyama and Isabella Bejarano, but ultimately fell short 21-18,21-10. This loss didn’t affect their next match as the Mesa pair beat Dana Sanchez and Theona Phan in two sets 21-9, 21-8.
June Andrews didn’t hoard all the credit for San Diego Mesa’s recent triumphs. She made sure to shine a spotlight on Assistant Coach Thai Lay. Lay’s important role with the team was echoed by Andrews, stating he “really does a great job with strategy and making on the fly changes, coaching during the match.”
The Olympians can’t focus on their win for too long as they look to avenge their loss against De Anza College. On the tough upcoming face-off, Emily Chindamay shared the teams outlook on facing the strong opposition again, stating we are all very passionate and dedicated to working on not just ourselves, but us as a team in our doubles strategy” and that when you’re facing an opponent like De Anza “every point matters”. The upcoming match against De Anza will take place on Mar. 31 at 2 p.m.
