In the third set of the men’s singles finals against Patrick Henry High School, April 6, co-captain Allan Fang (10) was up 21-20. Fang had achieved a major comeback since his first set when he had lost 21-10 before capturing the second, 21-17. Knowing he was up against a strong opponent, Fang expected a loss and went into the match unnerved, though this changed as his lead grew.
“I was sort of relaxed and prepared to lose,” Fang said. “But then when I started winning in the second set, I would say I got nervous.”
Rallying back and forth for points in the last set, the final shot of the match had been his opponent’s missed net shot right on the boundary line, which propelled Fang to the 22-20 third-set win and match victory.
“I won just barely, so it was a very close game,” Fang said. “It didn’t get us a team win overall but for me, it was a good personal accomplishment. As a sophomore, I don’t usually have a good chance against juniors and seniors who have more experience, so I felt pretty good about the win.”
This close game became Fang’s favorite match of this year’s badminton season.
This season has been exciting, according to Fang. He said that there have been some ups and downs, but the individual players’ growth has impressed him.
“We have a lot of people [on the team] who’ve improved since we change the lineups [regularly],” Fang said. “There’s been players who get new experiences and partners, and I think that’s very exciting for the team.”
Similarly, this season has been extremely successful for Amy Hu (10). She has won all her doubles matches and placed top four in singles at the Sue Minnock tournament, April 16.
Badminton has three available variations of games: singles, doubles, and mixed. Co-captain Adrian Luo (11) said that switching between all the types throughout the season can take some time to get used to.
“When you’re going from singles to mixed, you have to be able to let the bird go past you, and a lot of people playing for singles are used to going for everything,” Luo said.
Hu said she prefers playing singles.
“I’m more of a singles player because sometimes it’s kind of hard to coordinate with other people,” Hu said. “My strength isn’t really reaction time or smashing [a hit with power and speed downward into the opponent’s court] because I don’t have power. My way of winning singles is making my opponents move, and I can’t really do that in doubles because there’s two people.”
In contrast, Fang enjoys playing mixed more.
“Singles take a lot more stamina, and I have to play longer,” Fang said. “I think I’m really comfortable in mixed. [With] my position, my defense, I feel better [playing mixed.]”
After sitting in a three-team tie for third place, the Wolverines beat Madison High School, 10-7, to claim sole possession of third place in the league. Originally the team was placed fourth out of seven schools. In order to secure the third position, they had to place their match priorities.
“After the singles [game] wins, we were counting on doubles and mixed and we made a decision that we were going to push for mixed [to rely on gaining points from,]” Fang said. “It was more of a tactical thing because we felt that a lot of those players were more experienced and worked better together.”
With the new placement, Fang is very happy and content with where the team is.
“Seeing this new league ranking resembles all of our efforts [this season] and our team as a whole,” Fang said. “This league ranking of third place is only possible because of the large amount of contributions and effort put in by each player themselves, so once again I’m very, very happy with this [result].”
This ranking allows them to qualify for CIFs, May 2 and May 4. This year, Fang said he believes that their team has a decent shot at doing well in CIFs.
“I think we have a good chance, unlike last year,” he said, “so we’re going to be pushing ourselves a bit more.”