Members of the Palo Alto High School badminton team celebrate their successful performance at the Santa Clara Valley Athletics League Championships last weekend.
Four standout performances include juniors Eric Chiang and James Wang, who placed first in boys’ doubles, and freshman Jackie Cai and senior Promise Lee, who placed second in girls’ doubles.
Chiang, Cai, Wang and Lee qualified for the Central Coast Selection playoffs.
Other notable performances include sophomores Ally Zhu and Linus Wang, who got 13th place in mixed doubles. Sophomores Alice Zhang and Ericka Wu placed ninth in girls’ doubles and sophomores Justin Yip and Samarth Venkatasubramaniam took 13th place in boys’ doubles.
Cai is proud of the team’s performance at SCVALs.
“Paly did pretty well overall,” Cai said. “The results were predictable and I think our performance reflects our improvement throughout the season.”
Chiang echoed Cai’s evaluation of the tournament.
“Compared to last year’s results with James [Wang] and I getting fourth in boys’ doubles and Derek [Young] and Promise [Lee] getting third in mixed doubles, Paly performed a lot better this year,” Chiang said.
According to Cai, a key factor of her performance is her work ethic with Lee.
“I think Promise [Lee] and I performed well together,” Cai said. “She sets up for me, and I kill it. I think we have both improved a lot by playing at SCVALs.”