Women’s badminton closed out the regular season by beating Skyline April 26 and Fresno City College May 1. The Dons finished second in the Coast Conference with a 6-2 record behind San Francisco City College.

Their last team match against the Fresno Rams started with the teams splitting the opening six singles matches.

Games are first-to-21, win-by-two contests, and matches are won by the first side to win two games. Matchups are determined by team rankings, with the best players ranked No. 1.

In her opening match, Dons No. 2 Katherine Ja thwarted Rams No. 1 May Yang’s deep lobs with several long distance kill shots and controlled the match with a mix of powerful slams and well placed shots.

The match pitting Dons No. 1 Melody Kuo against Rams No. 2 Crystal Herr was faster paced.

After Kuo lost the first game 23-21, the second game was also tight with both players eschewing defensive lobs in favor of aggressive shots. Kuo led 19-17, but a bad serve hurt her chance to close out the game. Herr prevailed 24-22 to win the match.

Dons took a stranglehold on the team match when they swept the first three doubles matches.

Dons No. 4 Tran Nguyen and No. 5 Christy Ilio match against Fresno’s No. 1 and No. 2, Yang and Herr.

Both sides struggled in the first game. The Dons found themselves down 16-12 but managed to come back to win 21-18 thanks to great net play by Tran and good team positioning.

“The rotation is really key,” Ilio said afterwards.

“It is the last home game for me, so I’m trying to end it well,” said Ilio.

De Anza closed the match in game two, winning 21-14, and split the remaining matches to win the team match 13-8.

“[Kuo and Ja] largely just have to stay consistent and they’ll have a good shot of qualifying [for the state finals],” he said.

De Anza’s match on April 26 against a depleted Skyline Trojans squad missing their top player Anna Nguyen was a lopsided affair. The Dons won all 17 matches, including five forfeitures.

One of the more competitive matches was a doubles contest between Nguyen and Ilio and Skyline No. 2 Kayla Garcia and No. 3 Kathleen Reyes.

In the first game, Reyes hit many impressive smashes from her back position, but Skyline was hurt by unforced errors from Garcia’s net play and De Anza won 21-14.

Skyline took the second game 21-10.

The start of the third game featured several good drop shots from Nguyen, and the Dons reeled off nine unanswered points to win 21-10 and the match 2-1.

After the match, Nguyen said there was a lack of focus in the first two games and credited an increased intensity for the strong finish.

“We attacked more, too,” she said. “We were more aggressive.”