North Trip Shows Women's Badminton State Contender

The Pasadena City College women's badminton team breezed over host De Anza College, 18-3, in a non-conference match Mar. 10 and then followed that with a bevy of individual wins at the Coast Conference round robin individual tournament Mar. 11 also held at De Anza in Northern California.

PCC No. 1 Sarah Thaw scored two singles wins in the dual match, defeating De Anza's top players Tiffany Liao, 21-7, 21-15, and Negar Hou, 21-7, 21-12. The significance of those wins were that the De Anza pair downed Lancers' No. 2 Hong Yan Liu in their other singles matchups. 

Natalie Ong, playing No. 3, and No. 4 JunTing Huang each recorded two wins while Chaw Thinzar Mon scored two wins in the No. 6 slot. In doubles, Thaw and Liu won two matches, including a 22-20 and 21-12 triumph over Dons' No. 1 Liao and Yu Hsuan Liu. 

At the Coast tournament, one that played to no champions only a set number of matches for the players, PCC went 13-5 in singles play and an impressive 9-1 in doubles matches. Thaw-Liu beat Fresno City's pair of Panhia Vang-Linda Vuu, 21-10, 21-14 and rolled over San Francisco's Bin Cheng-Rainie Dang, 21-10, 21-7. 

In singles, Thaw defeated Cheng, 21-10, 21-8 and swept Vang, 21-15, 21-8. Liu, Ong, Noemi Diaz, and Janin Herrera also won two matches each. 

"I feel like we are possibly stronger from top to bottom than even last year's state finalist team," said PCC head coach Jen Ho. "We are very strong in doubles, and even our singles losses were matches where our players were very competitive. Going to the North always helps us know what we have to do to get better. We get to see things outside the South Coast Conference. Our biggest competition may again be from the PCAC. We don't play those teams unfortunately in regular season matches."

PCC is 4-0 overall and returns to action on Friday, Mar. 17 in a 2 p.m. SCC match at East Los Angeles College.