Disclaimer: Vyvyan Nguyen is on the badminton team.
By Vyvyan Nguyen
Last Thursday, Fountain Valley High School (FVHS)’s badminton team played against Marina High School (MHS) and ended the game with a 20-1 victory. Last time, the team lost to the Marina Vikings by one point at an away game. This time the team came back strong winning all girls’ doubles, boys’ doubles, girls’ singles and boys’ singles.
Senior Chau Tran and junior Kaden Nguyen started off strong in the first set of their mixed doubles match. During one of their games, senior Dimitri Nguyen and junior Remy Phan struggled a bit in their first set but powered through the remaining two to take a win. Sophomore Sophie Ho and senior Minh Nguyen also had great plays during their match. Mixed doubles lost one very close game.
Girls’ doubles won all games and worked hard with one another leading to four wins for the team. Partners Chau Tran and Ho and partners Phan and sophomore Charisse Nguyen defeated their opponents within two sets.
Senior Sam Nguyen and junior Kaden Nguyen played through three sets in both boys’ doubles games. Senior Christian Cao and Minh Nguyen started their games securing victory within two sets.
“I think the games were very solid and competitive but as a team, we were more determined to win and get revenge about this match,” Cao said. “The most challenging thing about the game was staying compos[ed] and ensur[ing] that the games were not sloppy and ensuring each victory.”
Juniors Vy Tran and Krystal Wong showed great performances during their girls’ singles matches. Vy Tran tired out her opponent during her second game. The first set finished 22-20 and the second ended 21-11. Wong played all the way, powering through three matches in both games. The two players fought hard until the end, bringing another four points home.
“At first I was really nervous since I lost to both of them the first time, but I’m proud of me and Vy [Tran] for winning,” Wong said. “ I kept telling myself things like I can beat them, they’re good but so am I, and imagine how cool it would be to win against a CIF qualifier.”
More brilliant plays came from boys’ singles who defeated their opponents in all four games. During the second match, Dimitri Nguyen played an incredibly intense set and ended with 26-24. Senior An Ta also defeated his opponents with a set point difference as big as 21-7.
After their loss against Marina, the team is quite excited to make such a large comeback.
“It was a well deserved victory, after a constant two years of losing to them it was finally our time to come around, with all the practices we’ve gone through and efforts put into them, it was definitely our win to take eventually,” team captain and singles player An Ta said. “We underestimated them the first time, ultimately leading to our defeat, from roster changes to not playing in the right mindset, but after a heartbreaking defeat we knew we had to be prepared for our next game against them.”
Badminton’s next home game is against Cerritos High School on Tuesday, Apr. 26 at 3:15 pm.
