Badminton excelled at the Central Coast Section (CCS) playoffs on Saturday, May 16, at Independence High School, with No. 1 boys’ singles sophomore Alvin Ho and No. 1 mixed doubles seniors Brandon Mark and Nicole Huang qualifying for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) NorCal Regional Badminton Championship that will take place on Saturday, May 23.
In the tournament, Ho placed sixth, winning four matches and losing two. Mark and Huang clinched seventh following a three-set win (21-14, 13-21, 21-14) against the No. 1 mixed doubles pair from Mills High School. According to Mark, he and Huang had lost to this pairing in the past.
“We were fighting against this Mills pair that we always lost to, we could beat them in recreational matches, where we were playing, but the atmosphere wasn’t very tense, but every time we played in a competition setting, we’d always lose. But then we’re fighting for seventh place in that match, and then we ultimately came out on top,” Mark said.
Going into the match, Mark said he maintained a stress-free mentality to avoid making unnecessary mistakes. He said he treated the matches like any other and had low expectations due to their strong competition.
“I would say there’s more pressure, but it wasn’t astronomical because I personally wasn’t really expecting much, so I didn’t really have big expectations for myself, and so I wasn’t very nervous, so I was kind of expecting to lose, not qualify for CIF,” Mark said.
Mark believes their success can be attributed to good communication throughout their matches.
“I think communication really allowed us to work together better, and just being not nervous also helped a lot by helping us not make as many mistakes,” Mark said.
Despite failing to qualify for CIF, No. 1 girls’ doubles player senior Ting Ting Wang said she was happy with her and her partner senior Saskia Dankbaar’s performance. According to Wang, the CCS atmosphere was very intense and much more competitive than the Peninsula Athletic League Championships.
“It was definitely more competitive, rallies would go on and there would be three sets and there would be a whole crowd watching, South San Francisco brought their cheer team but there was definitely a lot of people crowding around because they love the sport,” Wang said.
Despite not placing fifth or higher, which was his goal going into CCS, Ho said he was happy with his performance. Unfortunately, due to leg cramps, Ho had to retire from his final match to compete for 5th place.
“I personally think I actually did pretty good… My second game against [Prajwal Avadhani], I went three sets with him, and it was really close for all three games, and I know I should have won that game,” Ho said.
Going into CIF Championships, Mark said his goal is to win as many matches as possible.
“We’re also surrounded with a lot of really good players, because the bigger tournaments we get to, the opponents get better exponentially because you get the top winners from each region to CCS, and then when we go to CIF, we’re going to get the top people from each region. So it’s going to get much, much harder,” Mark said.
According to Ho, attending CIF Championships with Mark and Huang will help him grow mentally. Ho said he will try to convince teammates who did not qualify to attend CIF as well and support Burlingame.
“I’m definitely gonna cheer for [Mark and Huang], and I might try to convince the rest of the team to come to their games,” Ho said. “… I think bringing the team around is definitely important.”
