Varsity Badminton secured a 20-10 win against Wilcox High School in its second game of the season on Tuesday, March 12. Despite missing four Varsity players due to injuries and illness, MVHS adapted by moving Junior Varsity players up to the higher division.

Captain,and senior Jayden Lim, who competed in the Varsity mixed doubles event, recognizes the challenges the team faced, specifically with frequent lineup changes. However, he commends Junior Varsity players for stepping up and filling missing spots to contribute to the team’s success.

“As a team we’ve been doing well — especially today, even though we had a lot of absences,” Lim said. “People had to move around and change partners a lot. I think people adapted pretty well. We didn’t have any big issues or any complaints.”

Captain and senior Harsh Patil, who competed in the Varsity Boys’ doubles, credits the team’s win to the players’ preparation, emphasizing that additional conditioning and targeted drills helped improve their gameplay. Compared to the team’s first game against Milpitas High School, Patil noticed significant improvement, particularly in MVHS’ consistency.

“We worked on specific shots like making sure the bird goes down the net to avoid the opponent being able to attack us,” Patil said. “That’s the one thing we worked on that seems to have worked pretty well overall. This made this game not so challenging.”

Looking ahead, Lim hopes to see the team continue to improve and establish a consistent lineup. With more sophomores and freshmen temporarily on the team for certain games, he aims to train the younger players this season and for a higher placement in the league.

“We’re growing again with the young roster,” Lim said. “We’re trying to focus on getting the younger players to get accustomed to the game and hopefully, just do better than last year. Last season, we were tied for second to last. So, it wasn’t the greatest season, but hopefully, this season, we’ll aim for at least around third place.”