MIRA COSTA BADMINTON 2024 SEASON A HUGE SUCCESS

The 2024 Mira Costa Badminton Season is officially complete and judged to be a big success.

Going 8-4 in season and post-season Team matches, with three of the four losses by just one or two games. We won our first Mira Costa Invitational Tournament and had place winners in the Arcadia and Cerritos Tournaments.
 
For CIF Southern Section team play we were just one game away from making the Division 1 finals as the eventual CIF SS winner Marina, edged us 10-11. We first defeated Sierra Vista 19-2 and then Redlands 16-5 before falling to Marina in the CIF SS Division 1 Semi-Finals. All three matches had exciting competition. Zach Berkes and Hao Lin went undefeated in Boys Doubles for the three matches as was Hao and Jaclyn Wang in Mixed Doubles and Isabelle Chen in Girls Singles. All varsity players got wins in the CIF SS Team Tournament
 
Our Boys Varsity players were then selected to compete in the CIF SS Individual Tournament, with 180 of the best players in SOCAL. Hao + Zach and TJ Lee + Andrew Pedrotti played Boys Doubles and James Zhang and Skylar Irby played Boys singles. Zach and Hao nearly defeated the #1 Seed from Arcadia in the Consolation Quarterfinals taking them to three sets. TJ and Andrew got a win on the first day but fell to Zach and Hao in the consolations in an unfortunate draw. Skylar made it to consolation Quarter Final as well with two wins before falling to a good Redlands player. James fought hard in his two matches on day one.
 
In our Mira Costa Invitational Tournament early in the season Zach, Hao, Isabelle and Skylar won gold with James winning silver. Isabelle won Gold in the Cerritos Tournament and Silver in the Arcadia Tournament. Isabelle and Hao won gold and Hao and Zach took 3rd at the Arcadia Tournament. Zach led for the second straight year as Varsity Caption while Spencer Stone lead Junior Varsity as Caption.
 
Our Junior Varsity players competed hard as well with Evelyn Green winning Gold in the Cerritos JV Tournament and many of them earning Varsity letters at various matches. Even though we are losing eight seniors the team looks strong with James Zhang, Kate Kligys, Hao Lin, Evelyn Green, Pamelyn Wang, Luka Wong, Micah Chu and other underclassmen poised to lead.
 
We’ve also had unprecedented news coverage this season with placements in Manhattan Beach News, a live TV segment on KTLA’s Morning News show and an in-depth spread in The Easy Reader on the history and growth of the Mira Costa Badminton program, coaches and roots at the Manhattan Beach Badminton Club.
 
We wish our seniors well as they navigate post-high school: Zach Berkes, Isabelle Chen, Jaclyn Wang, Nadia Kontorovsky Wong, TJ Lee, Andrew Pedrotti, Skylar Irby and Jeremiah Yip. We know their experience with Mira Costa Badminton has taught them to be good teammates in life. And a special thanks to our coaches, Patty Perkinson, Cindy and David Levin and George Murphy who put their time into making our Badminton program the best it can be. With the tragic loss of Coach Mike McAvin last year, Patty stepped in to support the program with our Booster President Cat Stone and Treasurer Krishna Berkes, whom without we wouldn’t be able to run Badminton at Costa.
 
The Badminton Banquet is May 29th at Mira Costa where we can celebrate the amazing accomplishments of the 2024 season. Go Costa!