Badminton Completes 12-0 Regular Season, To Face San Francisco In 3C2A State Final

The Pasadena City College women's badminton team capped a perfect 12-0 regular season by defeating San Diego Mesa, 15-6, on Wednesday at Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium. The Lancers also completed their seventh undefeated South Coast Conference title season under head coach Jen Ho at 10-0.

The team's lower ladder took care of business v. Mesa (10-2, 8-2 in SCC) #3 Janet Diec, #4 Uyen Banh, #5 My Linh Ly, and #6 Sophie Chao combining to win all eight of their singles matches. PCC's #1 Rhea Zou split her matches, losing to Mesa's top player Megan Nguyen, 21-14, 22-20, but defeating #2 Mylene Keophaseut, 21-18, 21-9. 

An illness forced #2 Anh Vu Nguyen Tran to forfeit v. Keophasuet at 1-1 in sets, but she was able to sweep Nguyen, 21-11, 21-6. Zou-Tran split their #1 doubles matches as did Banh-Diec, while Ly-Chao swept their #3 solo doubles match.

PCC hosts the 3C2A State Championships on May 9-11, beginning with the team championship final that will have the Lancers facing Coast Conference champion City College of San Francisco (currently 10-0) on Thursday, May 9 at 3 p.m. The individual singles and doubles competition takes place Friday and Saturday, May 10-11.

This will be the program's seventh championship final, having won back-to-back state titles in 2017 and 2018. PCC lost to CCSF in a dramatic 11-10 final in 2010 also at Pasadena. 

"I know if all of our players play to their potential we can give San Francisco a good battle," Ho said. "When we saw some of their players back at that North tournament in early March, you can tell they are athletic and have some strong players throughout their roster. We look forward to the challenge."

Pasadena will first see how the individual qualifiers are seeded when it plays at the SCC Individual Tournament on Friday, April 26 at San Diego City College.