Girls Varsity Badminton Aces the Regular Season

By Emma Rathgeber

Garden City High School’s Girls Varsity

Badminton team kicked off their season with a sweeping 7-0 win against Clarke High School This victory would prove to foreshadow what the rest of the team’s season had in store

This year, the varsity badminton team found new leadership under Coach Cutter, who brought a renewed sense of drive and competition to the team. Under this new guidance, the varsity badminton team dominated the regular season In twelve total games they had five shutouts and six 6-1 wins. The girls ended the season with a perfect 12-0 record and the title of Conference Champions, qualifying for the Nassau County playoffs for the first time in several years

Adding to their success, every starter on the team won All-Conference recognition This includes Ava Venezia, the team’s top singles player. She ended the regular season with a perfect record and qualified for the Nassau County Individual Championship as the 19th seed. Venezia also earned GCHS Athlete of the Week as a recognition of her success The team’s second and third singles players, Yu Jun Lin and Josephine Yin, also received AllConference awards as dominant singles players. They ended the regular season with records of 6-1 and 9-3, respectively. Team captain Grayson Gardi led the team with unmatched enthusiasm, while also putting up impressive numbers and receiving AllConference recognition for her performance as a doubles player. In fact, all of the team's word doubles players received All-Conference recognition, which includes Gardi, Brynn Burke, Anastasia Follender, Erin Gately, Tracey Huang, Emma Rathgeber, Sophie Rhein, Sonia Shi, and Ava Smolanick.

The badminton team’s hot streak came to an unfortunate end on May 16th, when the girls lost 5-2 against Freeport, the Conference II champions While their season did not last as long as they’d hoped for, the athletes still hold their heads high Coach Cutter and his team have a clear direction for next season, and plan to continue dominating the courts.