The girls’ badminton teams had a clean sweep over the Elgin Maroons during their first home meet of the ‘24 season on March 21 in Bishop Gym at West Chicago Community High School.
The Varsity and JV teams began warming up after school, preparing to face the Maroons. The teams practiced with their doubles partners and warmed up their smashes for the evening. The Elgin team arrived at the school about an hour late, which gave the home team a chance to set their goals for the evening.
“[We want to] definitely try our hardest to not give up and put our all in today,” senior Varsity captain Yohana Mora said.
Coaches and captains welcomed Elgin to the school, established the lines for in and out, and then each team performed their chant before the first matches commenced. The first matches were doubles. Players play with the same teammate through the whole season, allowing for athletes to polish their communication skills with their partners.
“My favorite part about being on the badminton team is that no matter how tough a battle a match is, the team is always there to cheer me on. [They’re] very encouraging, always nice. I don’t think any of these girls hate each other or anything, we’re all such a close family and I really love that,” sophomore and Varsity badminton member Valeria Ballines said.
The energy of the gym was focused throughout the entire game. The Wildcats pummeled Elgin: both Varsity and JV won every single and double match. Senior Alessandra Angeles won her first solo match by 9 points, and then her second match by 20 points, contributing to the overall sweep of wins WEGO had.
The players work hard in practice before facing every opponent so they can maximize their potential.
“We reflect on what we did in the last game and make sure that we integrate the different things that we need to work on into our practice. We also warm up like a longer version of how they warm up everyday. We really just almost run film like you would for football, look back and be like okay we messed up here let’s make sure that we do this differently,” Varsity coach Emily Brown said.
