Paly badminton served a commanding victory against Wilcox on April 2, with a final score of 21-9, the team worked off the energy gained from their previous win at home against homestead. 

Badminton has faced a hard season, with a trio of losses preceding their previous match, and found themselves with a profound determination to turn this season around.

Adam Fong specifies the team’s focus,

“I think for specifically me and my badminton partner we were able to learn from our mistakes at the last game and play a lot smarter for this one” senior Adam Fong said.

Badminton is both a doubles and singles sport, but the Paly team finds their trust and familiarity to be a driving factor in their success. Most of the team has been playing together for their entire high school careers, including Fong and his partner. 

This win was one of the closest of their season, with only an 11 point difference to seal the vikings victory.

At their previous match facing Wilcox, the team came out with a 24 – 6 victory, which was hard-fought to set an intention behind their season. 

Captain Venkatesh Bharadwaj highlighted the importance of these decisive victories for the rest of the season, 

“I felt that the wins against Homestead and Wilcox were very rewarding as we went into both games having played difficult teams prior, and being able to win that comfortably took a lot of stress away from the team and allowed us to have more fun,” Bharadwaj said.

These back-to-back victories mark a pivotal shift in the momentum of the vikings, their resilience shown in recent matches highlights not only the teams strength, trust and compatibility, but also their on-court strategy paying off. 

As Paly is preparing to enter the latter part of their season with a renewed sense of energy and excitement. They will soon be facing both Milpitas and Lynbrook for the second time, and with these teams being their greatest challenge earlier in the season, the team is readying up to play their best and hoping to keep their successful streak alive.