Irvine Valley ends Pasadena's streak of SCC badminton titles at 5
Irvine Valley College maintained the advantage it had in its first meeting against Pasadena City College as its 17-4 home victory Friday clinched the South Coast Conference team championship. Hosted into the SCC this season due to a lack of teams in the PCAC, the Lasers ended PCC's streak of five straight SCC team titles (2015-2019).
IVC (7-0 in SCC play, 7-3 overall) heads to its first CCCAA State Championship match since 2011 when it won the program's then sixth state title. The Lasers will likely play North Coast Conference leader De Anza (11-0 overall) for the team title at the CCCAA State Tournament May 12 at Fresno City College. Unfortunately for IVC, De Anza has handed the Lasers all three of their losses this season in mostly convincing manner.
Against PCC (4-2 in SCC, 4-4 overall), Irvine Valley won 10 of 12 singles matches and captured four of the five doubles matches. IVC's #1 player Lucy Luo beat Pasadena's #1 Cindy Zhao, 22-20, 18-21, 21-12 and swept the Lancers' #2 Nikki Ching, 21-10, 21-8. Zhou edged Lasers' #2 Jarita Huang, 21-18, 24-22, but Huang outlasted Ching, 18-21, 21-8, 21-15. Elisa Lau, the Lasers #3, went the distance to be her #3 PCC counterpart Joanna Dinh, 21-7, 16-21, 21-9 and beat Pasadena #4 Karen Chen, 21-10, 21-19.
Weichin Hsu (IVC's #4) and Winky Wang (#5) each swept their two singles matches while PCC's #5 Coco Wen downed Lasers' #6 Emily Feng, 15-21, 21-15, 21-19. Feng won her other singles.
In doubles, Irvine Valley #1 pair Luo-Huang rolled to wins over PCC's top duo Zhao-Ching, 21-7, 21-11, and #2 Dinh-Charlene Chen, 21-5, 21-7. Zhao-Ching swept #2 Lau-Hsu, 21-10, 21-17. Lau-Hsu beat Dinh-Chen, 21-17, 21-16 and Wang-Feng beat Wen-Chen, 21-11, 23-21.
The SCC Individual Tournament will take place at El Camino College on Friday, April 29.