The Palo Alto High School (1-3) badminton team suffered its tightest loss of the season yesterday at home as it was defeated by Milpitas High School (2-2) despite tying 15-15.
Paly lost the match despite scoring the same number of points because Milpitas won more games than the Vikings.
Paly’s loss was the result of a combination of several unforced errors and some calculated plays by the Trojans.
Viking Sophomore Jeffrey Mi and senior captain Tilak Misner lost their varsity doubles game in a close 2-1 match.
Junior Kevin Cox was able to come back to win his game 2-1 after a tight loss in the first game and was very happy with both the team’s and his performance.
“My game went pretty well,” Cox said. “I made a few mistakes. … I missed serves, but I was able to bring it back.”
The team has been training consistently under the leadership of new coach Kenny Chung and players have seen improvements in their games, according to Mi.
“This year we have a new coach, so we have a new training system, which I think is better because we do footwork a lot more,” Mi said.
Chung emphasized the hard work and dedication the players have put into their games this season and highlighted how this effort has shown each game.
“The team is getting a little bit more organized now,” Chung said. “It seems like the kids are training really hard for this game.”
Junior Joyce Yun commented on the performance of the team as a whole, stating that the team has started to become more focused on consistency.
“The team has been working on our consistency, and we’ve been bringing that to each game, this one included,” Yun said.
Cox says the team’s performance overall has been exceptional despite a few setbacks along the way.
“The team has been doing phenomenally in all the games that we’ve won, but we have lost a significant amount,” Cox said. “We’re going to do our best to win the rest of our games this season.”
Moving forward, the team will look to bounce back from this tight loss when they play their next league match against Milpitas (2-2) at 3 p.m. on Thursday at Lynbrook High School.
