Badminton Panthers Fight Hard in Jakarta

Balance, precision, and strategy are all integral components when fighting for success in the grueling sport of Badminton. This year, despite all challenges, both Badminton teams worked tirelessly all season long and showed great improvement as the season slowly progressed.

Lulu Smith (12) shares, “there was tough competition this year but we left everything out on the courts so we couldn’t be prouder of how we placed.”  At the IASAS Championships, which were held at Jakarta Intercultural School this year, the Varsity boys came 4th and the Varsity girls ended with a third place bronze medal.

As for the boys team, the IASAS competition proved extremely challenging resulting in unfortunate losses of 2-3 to almost every other teams during playoff matches before the finals. Although they put up a tough fight, unfortunately the boys also lost their bronze medal match. Tee Monsereenusorn (12)  adds, “we lost 2-3 to almost every team and did not win in the playoff match to get to the final. Teams seemed to be more competitive this year than they were in the past, with potentially five evenly-matched teams fighting for a gold medal.”

Lulu would also like to give a “quick shoutout to Pomme our singles 2! She did absolutely amazing at IASAS and never gave up even when matches became incredibly tense. For her first time at IASAS she performed like an absolute beast.”

Boys captain Tee remarks, “all of our coaches have contributed immensely to the development of the team, both in competition and during training. Our doubles 1 pairing of Guy and Jon Jon earned All Tournament honors, while our second doubles pairing between Warm and Agam narrowly missed out by one match, so we’d like to commemorate those two pairs for their excellent performance at IASAS this year.”

Throughout the season, both teams also faced a variety  of obstacles which they had to fight through in preparation for the grueling IASAS competition. This year in particular, majority of the girls team was relatively new, it took everyone a while to bond not only as athletes but as a team in order to build the necessary camaraderie required to successfully beat other components. The boys team faced their own set of challenges which included an extremely limited amount of training time due to interruptions such as GCW as well as Thai students facing ROTC camp commitments. Tee also shares, “Dealing with defeat was also a mental hurdle that we had to overcome.”

Season highlights included attending the IASAS tournament at Jakarta, Lulu reflects, “every match mattered so much to everyone that we all never gave up and you could really see that everyone was putting in 100% of their effort.” The boys also basked in the glory of their defeat against Taipei in the quarterfinals, where the team performed above and beyond expectations and all players stepped up when it mattered the most.

Although all the graduating seniors are extremely sad to be leaving behind the team, they look forward to live streaming home IASAS next year, where both badminton teams will come back stronger than ever!