Last Thursday, March 28, the Los Altos High School varsity badminton team continued their now five-game win streak by narrowly defeating the Los Gatos High School Wildcats 16–14 in a rematch. 

Due to repeated losses to the Wildcats last season and a defeat earlier this season, the Eagles didn’t have full faith in victory. 

“From the three years I’ve been doing badminton, this is the longest winning streak we’ve ever had,” senior Ayumi Terlizzi said. “It’s awesome that we’ve kept our morale strong through all our games.” 

Ayumi credits the team’s improvement to data lead junior Roshan Mahesh, who coded a program that sends each player a personalized data spreadsheet, allowing players to see areas for improvement. In addition to match scores and evaluation results, players can see videos of themselves through the program.

“In the past, when coaches wrote down their feedback on paper, it would get lost and wouldn’t get back to the player,” Roshan said. “Now players can use the spreadsheet during practice to know what to improve and keep in mind during games in the future.” 

“The leads are working hard to communicate with us and tell us where to improve,” Ayumi said. “I think that’s helped keep track of what we need to do.” 

Keeping her feedback in mind, Ayumi, who usually plays girls doubles, was paired up with junior Kourosh Yari to play mixed doubles 2. 

“Because I don’t usually play mixed, I had to get used to playing with my partner,” Ayumi said. “Our opponents had really good serves that would throw us off balance, because we weren’t used to playing with mixed rotations.” 

Ayumi and Kourosh turned things around after their 10–21 first set loss, sweeping their opponents 21–5 in the second and winning their last set 21–19 to earn two points for Los Altos. 

“After we got our synergy back and started to understand our opponent’s play style and what type of shots they weren’t able to return, we were able to win,” Ayumi said. 

At that point, the Eagles were down just one point from winning the game, with a 13–14 overall score. It was down to boys doubles 1, sophomore Schuyler Hsueh and Roshan’s match to bring the Eagles to victory, which started with a 16–21 loss, but turned around to a 21–17 win in the second set. 

“At first, we were kind of playing how we normally would,” Schulyer said. “But our coach told us that in the second set, we should use softer shots and target the weaker players, and it worked.” 

“In the third set, our morale was low and we were just falling apart,” Roshan said. “At the end, we were down 19–20, but we knew we had to stay calm and keep playing consistently.”

Ultimately, Schuyler and Roshan defeated their opponents 22–20 in their last set — giving Los Altos the three points they needed to win. 

The Eagles will travel to face Fremont High School for a rematch today at 5:15 p.m.