Varsity:
With the start of a new season comes new opportunities for athletes to excel in their sport. The OHS badminton team is starting the year off strong, laying their foundation by building valuable relationships with their teammates.
Badminton has a new coach this year who aspires to bring success to the team through his research done before the season. Players are already seeing positive impacts to their team.
“We have a coach who’s really doing research on other teams and prior history. He’s really putting a lot of effort into making us better and doing specific drills for footwork,” said Aubrey Baker, sophomore.
During practice, the new badminton coach is working to foster the girl’s love for the game by encouraging them to play their best and connect with each other while improving.
“The main thing I love about it is the girls, they have the competitive side, but they’re also there because they truly enjoy the game and they also enjoy being with each other,” said Lance Gephart, head badminton coach.
When it comes time to play, this environment prepares players to lean into their competitive side upon reaching the court.
“I happen to be good at [badminton] so I like winning a lot. I’m very competitive and I always try to work hard to achieve my goals, which this season is to win a lot of the games,” said Brynlee Evanson, senior.
Though the badminton team aspires to create a successful season, they are also ready to have an exciting and enjoyable time with their team.
“I think this year’s team is going to be very fun, energetic, and filled with very nice people that are just there to have fun [and] bring spirit to the school,” Evanson said.
With their shared love of the game, the badminton team is working together to curate a bond with old and new players alike.
“We have newer people and some people who have never played before who are coming in as freshmen so I think it just gives diversity of opinion and diversity of skill too,” said Amber Devore, senior.
JV:
Like varsity, the JV badminton team is also seeing an influx of new players this season. They are already encountering the advantages of playing with people with a variety of experience levels.
This allows the players to do better than they have in the past because they are able to rely on the diverse abilities of their teammates.
“I think this year is actually better because we have newer students that have newer skills and that’s really interesting to see,” said Nithila Elayaraja, sophomore.
With these new players, JV Badminton continues to work together to build a stronger team with their collective experience.
“Badminton can be an individual sport and sometimes with individual sports like badminton, golf, tennis, to bring together a team it’s a lot harder. So if you can do that it makes everyone so much stronger as a team,” Gephart said.
By looking at Badminton as more of a team sport when many see it as individual, the team is able to look towards each other to find success.
“There’s a lot of new people on this team so I think that’s going to be really good. There’s a lot of new things that we can learn so I feel like we can learn different things. It’s really not changed much with our dynamic,” said Payton Clark, junior.
As a whole, the badminton team continues making vast improvements to their camaraderie by rooting for each other.
“Well at first, we had a lot of new people and a lot of old people, but there was very little mixing of it. I put a stop to that because it doesn’t matter if you’re on varsity or JV. We’re all going to know each other,” Gephart said.
