Coast Conference Badminton Championships: Day 1 Recap

Notes from Head Coach Mark Landefeld:

The De Anza College women's badminton demonstrated a lot of quality on Day 1 of the Coast Conference Championships, contested at Fresno City College.

Halfway through singles qualifying sophomores Makayla Than, Karina Chow, Marissa Valerio and Adrienne Lee have clinched entry into next week's 3C2A State Championships. 

Freshmen Lyndsey Le, Risa Ohara, Jolie Huang and Danika Rocha-Jayasinha have also earned advancement into next week's event. Final seeding will be determined Friday.

"I knew the larger field for the North (16 entries) would benefit us this year, but to earn more than half those positions (9) is a real tribute to the work of our women and coaches," Landefeld said.

"All year our theme has been to simply get better.  Do the easy things well and do what we can to stay in control of each contested point."

With most of Thursday's action focused on singles, the six Mountain Lion doubles teams were only called upon to play one round – but victories in that round assured four entries (Than/Chow, Ky/Wan, Liu/Valerio, Lee/Rocha-Jayasinha) into the doubles event next week, while the remaining teams (Huang /Ly, Le/Ohara) are looking a winnable second round matchups that could mean a first – potentially 12 Mountain Lions participating in the doubles event at the State Championships.

Landefeld added: "My highlight of the day was watching Adrienne Lee and Danika Rocha-Jayasinha completing three grueling rounds of singles and then playing a fresher, higher-seeded Fresno City team of Ashley Garcia and Alisa Pasricha, taking them to three sets on their home floor and winning, 21-14, 17-21, 23-21. It was the last match played and served as a great exclamation point on the team performance."

Day 2 at the FCC Gym starts on Friday at 11 a.m.