After looking nearly invincible early in the season, the badminton team now finds itself in rough waters, with the conference championship coming down to a one game showdown against mighty Pasadena City College.
The conference championship was decided yesterday after the Warriors faced first place team, Pasadena City College. However, scores were unavailable at press time.
If the Warriors win, the South Coast Conference title will be theirs, but if they lose, it will break their impressive streak of four consecutive conference championships.
“We will play our best; We hope to come out on top, ” caoch John Britton said.
For the warriors to win, they will need to be healthy and will need to have a full squad; something they haven’t been in their last few games.
“I have only played once in the past three weeks,” said Tomoe Okaguchi, the team’s top player. “But I will do my best.”
Brotton feels confident that his team will be ready for its biggest game of the season.
“Be assured that the team will be at its strongest,” said Britton. “All of our players will be there.”
The women fell last Wednesday to a surging East Los Angeles team 14-7, but regrouped to throttle a weak L.A. City College team Monday by a score of 20-1.
After the poor showing last against East L.A., the Warriors were happy to pick up the hard earned victory on Monday .
“It’s good to get back on the winning trail,” Britton said of the victory over L.A. City. “The last two games (before that) we have been missing our top two players (Okaguchi and Mayumi Inata).”
The loss last week against East L.A. could have been due to lack of players for the warriors.
“We didn’t have a full team against East L.A.,” Ida Leong said.
Some of the players felt their play was not their best and it hurt them in their loss
“Our team lost against East L.A. because nobody was on their game,” said Brittany Garcia, who actually won both doubles matches she played with Marjorie Cortez. “We mostly played bad.”
However, against L.A. City, the Warriors were able to dominate like that had earlier in the season.
Okaguchi felt the win came against a team that lack expereinced players and vetran leadership.
“(Monday’s game) was easy,” Okaguchi said after the victory. “They (L.A. City) were mostly beginners.”
Besides having a team of beggining players, L.A. City hade a disadvantage because of a lack of players for the game.
“They didn’t have enough players,” added Yanni Ma, who pulled out a close doubles victory with partner Monique McShane, 6-15, 15-8, and 15-13.
