For the second year in a row, the Woodside High School badminton team finished their season winless.
After a fifteenth straight loss coming against Crystal Springs, the Woodside badminton team’s season ended yet again with zero wins. Despite being one of the largest squads at the school with 30 plus players on the team, badminton at Woodside is often thought of as more of a recreational sport rather than having an extremely competitive environment.
“I feel like we are more of a hobby than a sport,” commented senior player, Abby Wong. “The people on our team like to hang out with their friends or they just like to play badminton; they are not really competitive.”
Even though the social environment is a big part of the sport of badminton, players on the team take their practices seriously.
“Usually we practice two times a week on Wednesday and Friday,” added junior player, Lance Harwood. “We run on Wednesdays, and then we usually do running a gym work on Fridays.”
Even though the team’s record is not stellar, the players on the team tend to agree that the competitiveness of the team is improving in comparison to previous seasons.
“I think the coaches are trying to make a new format for the badminton team. We do the same drills as last year, but they are changed up a little bit in order to see what we can improve on,” junior Aubrey Romer said.
The toughest part of winning a badminton match is having the endurance and clutch play to finish the match.
“Our games go to twenty one points; you play best out of three, and every game you swap. If the score is 21-20, you have to win by two, which can be intense,” mentioned Harwood.
Unfortunately for the Wildcats, they have had trouble with teamwork, which has caused them to be largely unsuccessful for the last couple of seasons.
“We all do play well at certain times, but never really at the same time,” finished Romer. “We may win a bunch of games in one division, but may lose a bunch of games in another, which makes us average out to losing.”
