Badminton season starts; freshmen have ‘potential’

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This year’s badminton season officially started on March 21 at Monta Vista High School, Head Coach Jonathan Huynh said. According to Huynh, he hopes to have everyone play well this season.

Huynh encourages the athletes to play with confidence. He wants to make sure the players know that he can help them, Huynh said.

“[I don’t teach] because I love the sport,” Huynh stated. “It’s because I love to teach and to see kids succeed in what they love to do.”

Tryouts were strenuous, Junior Eric Chang said. The badminton team’s training is a composition of rigorous conditioning, advanced drilling, and intellectual discussion, according to Chang.

“There is an emotional distance between players,” Chang said. “We are aloof from each other. We should be closer as a team.”

The team has potential to do better than last year, Senior Kevin Yao stated. They lost a lot of seniors last year and those players were really good players, Yao said.
“We have more potential, but we are weaker,” Yao said. “We have a lot of freshmen that train and they have good technique.”

A team goal this season may be to have fun no matter what, Junior Michelle Cheah said. According to Cheah, she hopes to try harder, work harder, and play harder this season.

“There is going to be a lot of hard competition,” Cheah stated. “Since a lot of seniors left, we have to work harder this season.”

Some of the freshmen are too confident, Yao stated. The freshmen do not understand how hard playing badminton is, Yao said.

“Badminton is a lot of work,” Yao said. “[The freshmen] are underestimating the sport.”

The team has a strong bond and the members are there for one another, Cheah said. However, the team gained a lot of new players, such as underclassmen, this season and those new people do not have the technique to play as well, according to Cheah.
“The new people have potential,” Cheah stated. “When you start anything for the first time, it’s hard. So, I think that [the freshmen] will get better once [they] get used to [playing] more.”

A lot of seniors that have graduated were strong, Senior Larry Chan said. The team has higher expectations because they have to meet up to the standards that the previous seniors set, Chan added.

“Next year, they are going to have a lot of work,” Chan said. “I think [the JV team] in general, is a pretty good group. They can hit unlike previous years and they have the potential to develop more.”

The team’s goal this season is to improve, Chan said. He hopes to do well during the season personally and to place in CCS, Chan added.

“I joined badminton because my sister got me into badminton,” Chan said. “The sport is fun and it’s a passion.”