The Palo Alto High School badminton team (4-8) defeated Los Altos High School, 18-12, on the Vikings’ senior night on Tuesday at home.

According to head coach Justin Halas, the match was extremely important because it determined whether or not Paly would stay in the upper De Anza division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletics League or move to the lower El Camino division next season. Halas says Paly only narrowly won its last match against Los Altos.

“We’re two equal teams, so this is basically to see who stays in the upper division,” Halas said before the game. “This is basically our whole season right here.”

According to Halas, Tuesday’s match was delayed about an hour and a half because the Los Altos team originally went to Gunn High School instead of Paly and had to arrange for a bus to take them to the correct location. Halas says the Los Altos team mistakenly thought the construction of the new Paly Gym had already started and that all Paly home games were now at Gunn.

Before the match, the team organized a surprise Senior Night celebration for seniors Joseph Chang, Daniel Cohen-Wang, Alec Deng, Promise Lee, Matthew Li, Anthony Liu and Dan Su. Members of the team recited speeches and made posters for the graduating seniors.