Badminton remains undefeated

The Lancers badminton team continues its edge on South Coast Conference competition by keeping an undefeated streak alive with a shut-out win over El Camino College in Hutto-Patterson Gym on Friday. The 21-0 win boosts PCC’s overall record and SCC record to 7-0.”I think we all did pretty well,” said sophomore Iris Xu, who defeated her two singles opponents by scores of 21-7 and 21-3 in both matches. “I did just OK because my opponents weren’t strong. If my opponent is strong then I will be strong.”

Xu and teammate Jessica Nguyen-Le defeated their opponents in their doubles matches, first against Tanille Barnes and Yukino Noro then against Qian Cai and Karen Hung.

The closest set of the game came from Xu and Nguyen-Le’s doubles match against Barnes and Noro, which ended with a 21-10 score.

With the Lancers dominating so many of their opponents, the team tries to find ways to keep things interesting and fresh.

“It’s tough to keep it fresh but we find little ways to improve,” said Assistant Coach Sean Thornton. “Say the score to a set was 21-7. We tell the player what she needs to improve on to allow fewer points.”

Another way that PCC switches it up is by sitting out its best players when they know that the other team doesn’t have a high ranking.

“It would be easy to just roll over our opponents and not care about the matches,” said Thornton. “But we can’t do that when we get to State [Championships], so we find ways to improve.”

Normally, the teams play six singles matches, three doubles matches then six singles matches to total 21 points. But in an attempt to make things interesting and speed up the game, the teams agreed to play all singles matches first, then play the doubles matches.

Also, some team members find that contending with each other within the team helps keep their competitive drive strong.

“I have very strong teammates like Priscilla [Lun] who is nationally-ranked,” said Xu. “We train together and compete with each other. I try to keep my score close to her score, so that keeps me competitive.”

PCC played El Camino College-Compton Center on March 23 and defeated the Tartans 18-3.

“We only had five girls so we had to give up points,” said Thornton.

The Lancers will attempt to continue their streak of dominance when they take on their biggest competition East Los Angeles College today at ELAC at 3 p.m.