Piedmont High School’s badminton team completed a successful season with several athletes competing at the North Coast Section Division 2 championships on May 13 at James Logan High School.
The girls doubles team of Maddie Xiong and Mandy Tang made it all the way to the championship match before falling to the Kennedy-Fremont team of Chenyimeng Zhang and Phuong Nguyen, 21-14, 21-14. Xiong and Tang made the final with a 21-14, 16-21, 21-13 win over University-San Francisco’s Sofia Fung-Lee and Drew Taylor in the semifinal.
Xiong and Tang started the day with a 25-23, 18-21, 21-16 win over University’s Kalyani Nair and Katherine Vari. They followed that with a victory over the Hercules team of Megan Dea and Sunny Zhao, 21-17, 21-6. In the quarterfinals, they downed Eaindre Chan Myae and Thin Aung of Kennedy-Fremont, 21-18, 21-17.
The Highlanders’ Nasreen Schulze made it to the third place match in girls singles before losing to Cici Lin of San Domenico-San Anselmo, 21-9, 22-20.
Schulze started her day with a 21-8, 21-17 over International-San Francisco’s Ava Lee-Green. She then fell to eventual champion Sherry Liu of Moreau Catholic, 21-8, 21-17.
Now in the consolation bracket, Schulze beat Jesse Bethel-Vallejo’s Tamyah George, 21-2, 21-6. She downed Quarry Lane-Pleasanton’s Mimansa Kant (no scores available) and then beat Pinole Valley’s Arianna Salvador, 21-5, 21-10.
Maddie Tran aslo competed in singles for Piedmont, falling to Eliana Kinzler of Moreau Catholic in her only match, 21-16, 21-11.
Piedmont’s boys doubles team of Gary Zhou and Ivan Munn made the semifinals before losing 21-11, 18-21, 22-20 to Kennedy-Fremont’s team of Nathan Lin and Suhaib Zafar, the tournament runner-ups. Zhou and Munn then fell to University’s Joey Philhour and Michael Mooney in the consolation semifinals, 11-21, 21-15, 21-16.
Zhou and Munn started out by beating Lick-Wilmerding’s William Yu and Charles Zhang, 18-21, 21-13, 21-15. They followed that up with a 21-17, 21-16 win over Quarry Lane’s Keyi Mao and Ajeetesh Sidhu.
Piedmont’s Justin Phmah and Ethan Tran also competed in boys doubles. They lost their opening match to Moreau Catholic’s Prashant Chand and Vishnu Kanagala, 22-20, 21-5. In the consolation bracket, they defeated Michael Griffin and Eduardo Barron Valdez of Petaluma, 21-16, 22-20.
Phmah and Tran then defeated Cody Feng and Eli Rangarajan of Lick-Wilmerding, 21-17, 15-21, 21-7. They then lost to University’s Philhour and Mooney, 21-14, 21-12.
Emma Eisemon and Edwin Tang played mixed doubles for the Highlanders. They won their opening match 21-19, 21-18 over Drew-San Francisco’s Evelyn Fong and Xavier McDougal. They then lost to University’s Mary Kelly and Ben Johnson, 21-9, 21-11.
In the consolation backet, they beat the Hercules team of Bianca Vista and Martin Tubig, 22-24, 21-19, 21-13. They then lost to eventual third place finishers Kira Li and Roy Wang of Quarry Lane, 21-14, 15-21, 21-10.
Adele Puccio and Edison Zhu also competed in mixed doubles and lost their only match to Moreau Catholic’s Berne Chu and Shumo Wang, 21-11, 21-11.
Ken Sibal competed in boys singles for Piedmont and lost his only match to Vallejo’s Kyle Mabasa, 21-11, 19-21, 21-16.