Badminton Still In Hunt For SCC Title

With Wednesday's 19-2 win over East Los Angeles, the Pasadena City College women's badminton team still has an outside chance of tying Irvine Valley for the 2022 South Coast Conference team title. The Lasers all but have a share of the crown at 6-0 in conference matches, but PCC is 4-1 in second place.

Now, PCC (4-3 overall) will play at Irvine Valley on Friday, April 15 with the Lancers needing a win to possibly keep its conference title winning streak going for a sixth straight complete season (2020 no title was decided in a shortened season and 2021 no season played at all due to the COVID-19 pandemic). After the IVC meeting, the Lancers still will have matches left against San Diego Mesa and El Camino. A win by IVC over Pasadena would outright clinch the title for the Lasers.

In the victory over ELAC at Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium, Nikki Ching played #1 singles and swept Huskies' #1 Tsz Wa Elise Li, 21-16, 21-18, but had to rally to defeat ELAC's #2 Shuolei Shen, 11-21, 22-20, 21-16. Joanna Dinh was #2 for the Lancers and she impressed head coach Jen Ho by winning convincingly over Li, 21-7, 21-4, and Lei, 21-8, 21-10.

At #3, Karen Chen swept her two matches as did #4 Charlene Chen. Coco Wen (#5) and Elizabeth Mondragon (#6) each competed in only one match and both were victorious. East LA played with five players, one less than the normal 6-player ladder. 

Ching and Dinh played Lancers #1 doubles and recorded two sweeps. ELAC's only team points were scored in a win over PCC's Chen-Chen, 13-21, 21-14, 21-19.