PCC Badminton Gives Jen Ho Coaching Debut Victory

A new era in Pasadena City College women’s badminton began Wednesday and if first looks mean anything, then the Lancers seem poised as the favorites to win the South Coast Conference title. The visiting Lancers dominated defending SCC champion East Los Angeles, 21-0, to give Jennifer Ho a victory in her head coaching debut.

PCC has tremendous depth for the 2015 season as is shown by its 14-player roster, including five returning players from the ’14 squad. The lettermen contingent is made up of Carmina Ortiz, Karina Bustillos, Priscilla Lam, and the Lin twins, Yinghong and Yingwen.

The freshmen corps is talented with Rebecca Tzou (from Redlands) already pegged as the team’s No. 1 singles and top doubles player. Current No. 2 singles player Eugenia Mendez (Gladstone High) is another heralded newcomer and No. 3 Zin Win Maw (Arcadia High) rounds out a top 3 rookie ladder.

Against East LA, PCC recorded sweeps in all 12 singles and all five doubles matches. Tzou downed Huskies’ No. 1 player Chuyan Lao, 21-5, 21-10 and No. 2 Ching Mak, 21-2, 21-4. Mendez defeated Lao, 21-16, 21-16, and Mak, 21-4, 21-2.

Maw played at No. 3 and won her matches over No. 3 Mei Mei, 21-6, 21-4, and No. 4 Phyllis Ho, 21-2, 21-4. Ortiz was at No. 4 and she downed Mei, 21-2, 21-0, and Ho, 21-3, 21-4. Yingwen Lin played at No.5 as she swept No. 5 Catherine Huang, 21-4, 21-4, and No. 6 Stephanie Li, 21-6, 21-2. Finally, Bustillos romped over Huang, 21-3, 21-2, and downed Li, 21-10, 21-6.

In doubles, Tzou-Ortiz won as the Lancers top ladder, defeating Lao-Mak, 21-7, 21-10, and making quick work of Mei-Ho, 21-3, 21-3. Maw-Mendez played at No. 2 doubles and recorded wins over Lao-Mak, 21-6, 21-5, and over Mei-Ho, 21-2, 21-5. The Lin sisters won the other doubles over Huang-Li, 21-8, 21-6.

“We have a deep team, and what’s great is that I can move players around depending on our opponent,” Ho said. “East LA won the conference last year and I don’t think we saw its best effort yet. We were practicing so much to be ready for our first match and we were just very prepared.”

The rest of the Lancers freshmen are as follows: Amanda Awan (from Singapore), Jennifer Delgado (Pasadena High), Noemi Diaz (Azusa), Trang Lu (from Vietnam), Thu Nguyen (Gabrielino HS), and Diana Resendiz (Esteban Torres High).

The Lancers next face El Camino College-Compton Center on Friday, Feb. 27 at Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium. The matches begin at 2 p.m.