Head Coach: Bryan Liao
Last year’s record: 1-13
Recap: The team struggled last season in the De Anza League, losing many games by a few key determining matches and ended with a record of 1-13. Despite the losses, senior captain Samanvi Boppana and her sister and former captain Sannidhi Bopppana ended up winning Norcal for the first time in the school’s history.
Key Matchups: Santa Clara, Fremont, Los Gatos
Star Players: Senior Richard Li, senior Samanvi Boppana, senior Avi Taneja, junior Ishir Gupta, freshman Selina Xu, freshman Jayden Mar
Key losses to graduation: Sannidhi Boppana, Avik Belenje, Bryan Li and James Liu
League: El Camino
Prognosis:
After former badminton coach Thomas Ching stepped down as head coach — instead, he is taking on a part-time role by occasionally helping during games and practices — new head coach Bryan Liao is taking aim at building the team. Liao has over 20 years of badminton experience and five years of coaching experience, as well as having competed in various local tournaments.
“I’m impressed with how the players are adapting to myself and learning new techniques and improving their skills,” Liao said. “All our players are putting in a lot of time and effort.”
Coach Liao has not been the only valuable addition to this team, as two nationally ranked freshmen have joined the team, Selina Xu, ranked 19th in girls singles and 21st in girls doubles, and Jayden Mar, ranked 49th in for boys in singles and doubles.
Xu said, “Leading up to my first game, I would say I’m pretty excited since it’s a new experience for me as the format of outside competitions are pretty different from school games. I think the team will do well this year and I think we’ll have fun and win a lot of our games this season.”
Boppana and the other captains, senior Taneja, Smith, Li and senior Han Yeung, along with Coach Liao, have been implementing new drills in practice to help the team improve, with the goal to win first place in the league to move back up to the upper division.
“This year we implemented a really nice routine where all the players started off with structured drills, and we specifically played with our game partners and similar players,” Boppana said. “The team has been doing a great job with the practices as well, with everyone pushing themselves every day and game.”
The first few practices have shown to be paying off, as the team’s first game of the league season at Santa Clara on March 4 ended in a blowout win for varsity at 30-0 and JV winning 11-4.
“I think everyone’s having fun playing but also utilizing everything that they have learned in our practices so far, so I think we’re going to have a great season and we have a good chance of being league champions,” Boppana said.
The Falcons dominantly won their matches on March 6 28-2 against Los Altos and March 11 19-11 against Mountain View. They will take on Macdonald at home on March 13 for their next league game.
