It was one round into the 2020 South Coast Conference badminton season and things hadn't changed from recent history. Pasadena City College was on its way to likely its sixth straight conference team title and looking for a fifth straight trip to the CCCAA State Championship match this month. Instead in mid March, the birdies stopped flying and the 2020 season had been permanantly shut down by the worldwide health crisis. There are no conference champion, no individual awards, and no chance for state titles from the SCC.
Here are some of the highlights from the brief '20 season:
Pasadena (3-0) won its first three SCC matches in decisive fashion although both El Camino and East Los Angeles showed flashes of improvement even from their 2019 squads. But PCC had improved at the top of the ladder after the Lancers had lost in the '19 state final to Fresno City College. Pasadena's incoming freshman duo was formidable.
Lancers head coach Jen Ho talked about the possibilities dashed with the season's abrupt finish.
"I felt that this was the best team I've had since I started coaching here," Ho said. "I was very confident that this year would be the year that we would take all three state titles-team, individual singles and doubles. I was confident that Charisse Chow would become singles champion, and she would partner with Chit Thu to take the doubles title. These are talented freshmen, and I had 6 returning players all playing a lot better than last year. If we were going to accomplish the triple crown including the team championship, it was this year."
Chow was a junior national ranked player and in 2017 was the CIF Southern Section mixed doubles finalist at San Marino High. Thu is a top talent from the country formerly known as Burma (now Myanmar).
El Camino was 2-1, including a nifty 15-6 win over East LA. The Warriors played PCC the closest in a 15-6 defeat on March 6. A couple of players that have stood out for the Warriors are #1 player Marina Mongaki, who played well in a loss to PCC's #2 Thu (21-19, 21-15) and partnered with Lois Murallon to upset the Lancers' doubles squad of Chow and Huyen Diep, 21-12, 19-21, 21-11. Another player playing well was middle ladder player Miyu Kawaguchi.
ELAC was 2-2 overall and paced by #1 Yamei "Amber" Huang and #2 Jasmine De La Cruz. Compton (0-4) had a talented player in #1 Giselle Aranda, who won three matches (one doubles) in a doubleheader-loss to East LA.
A number of SCC players missed out on advancing to the CCCAA State Individual Tournament that would have been held this year at NorCal's Fresno City College.
Final Records at link below for SCC Badminton Teams, records count but no places, standings, or champions for the 2020 season.
