Women's Badminton 1-1 Start To South Coast Conference Play
The Pasadena City College women's badminton will likely see its streak of South Coast Conference championships end this year with the emergence of San Diego Mesa. The Lancers were throttled, 20-1, on March 10 in their SCC road opener.
Thuw Tran prevented a rare conference shutout against by scoring the team's lone point in a #5 singles v. Mesa's #6 Izazaga, 17-21, 21-19, 21-16. The 3-time defending/undefeated SCC champion Lancers saw a 32-match conference win streak under 2-time, state champion head coach Jen Ho, snapped that went back to the 2022 season.
On Wednesday, the Lancers blanked host East Los Angeles, 21-0, with singles players in #1 Yoon Noe, #2 Tiffany Nguyen, #3 Kharista Kristi, #4 T. Tran, #5 Linh Tran, and #6 Sau-Lan Yang all winning two matches. The closest wins were Nguyen edging ELAC's #2 Miaoling Ling, 19-21, 21-12, 21-13 and Yang going the distance to beat #6 Hannah Vinuya, 11-21, 21-19, 22-20. In doubles, #1 duo of Noe-Yuki Ding won two matches as did #2 Nguyen-Thuw Tran. The #3 team of Leigh San Gabriel-Krisi won their one match (in badminton the #3 doubles counts as one team point and only one match is played at the #3 doubles ladder).
At the PCC Tournament held March 14, The Lancers played individual matches against players from San Diego Mesa, East Los Angeles and Fresno City. Some of the Lancers highlights were Group A opening round singles win by Noe over East LA's Yoyo Siu, 21-11, 25-15 and Group B wins by Linh Tran over Fresno's Yiting Wu, 21-0, 21-10, Cas Tran over ELAC's Vinuya, 21-17, 21-14. IN Group B, Round 2, Nicole Choo downed Mesa's Fabiola Garcia-Arteaga, 21-14, 21-15, Linh Tran picked up her second win over Mesa's Florisea Lopez, 21-13, 21-10, Thuw Tran beat ELAC's Jocelyn Flores, 21-3, 21-2, and Leigh San Gabriel posted a 21-15, 21-16 triumph over Vinuya.
In Group A doubles, Nguyen and Thuw Tran beat Mesa's Chrystal Micu/Alexa Izazaga, 21-17, 21-12, and San Gabriel and Yang rallied past ELAC's Erika Luc and Vinuya, 19-21, 21-19, 21-18. That pair then defeated the Huskies' Siu and Marivel Flores, 21-8, 21-9. Linh Tran and Yuki Ding scored a win over Mesa's Florisea Lopez-Mata and Garcia-Arteaga, 21-6, 21-11.
Pasadena next plays at 2-time defending 3C2A state champ De Anza today (Thursday, Mar. 19) at 5 p.m.
