Success has not changed the mindset of senior Juliette Zhou, who still views the badminton team as an underdog, she said.
“I would say there’s a little bit of pressure to keep performing well but then again at a lot of other schools we are considered underdogs so there’s that aspect to it,” Zhou said.
The girls badminton team has won four sectional championships in the past four years.
The team has secured first place in both singles and doubles at sectionals this year with Zhou and her freshman sister, Janelle Zhou, winning doubles and freshman Allison Zhao winning singles.
“I think [what has contributed to our success has] been our school legacy and the people that have been here before me, because I know previous years there have been really good badminton players who have made top eight singles, and top 12 in doubles [at state],” said Juliette Zhou. “So we’ve had a little bit of a reputation.”
According to head coach Tiffany Kim, the team had solid all around players that could be mixed into both singles and doubles.
“For sectionals you only take half your roster and so those six that were competing the past few years have been really solid for us,” Kim said.
Kim was awarded IHSA badminton coach of the year for the 2024-2025 and the 2021-2022 seasons.
“We had a really strong team last year, and so we had to fill in some big, big shoes, but the younger girls are stepping up,” Kim said.
Zhao holds a record of 21-0 in singles while the team holds an overall record of 31-3 as of May 14.
According to sophomore Ava Lee, a majority of the girls are club players and train outside of school, which made the team better as they worked on their skills and played together in orderto improve.
According to Kim, she prepared the team for playoffs by getting the team to be a bit more aggressive.
“They’re very good players,” said Kim. “They have very good footwork. It’s just sometimes ending the play a little faster is something that I [wanted] them to focus on. So we’ve really been trying to work on that.”
According to Lee, the team would practice with each other to simulate the actual game environment.
“The team community is very encouraging. We don’t pressure each other to do anything, we just always want to try our best,” Lee said.
According to Juliette Zhou, there is a lot of hope for the team to place in the top six at state again, but it’s a lot of pressure.
“We kind of do know when we’re gonna win and when we’re gonna lose matches, but we walk in with this, like security that everything’s gonna be fine afterwards,” Zhou said.