The Mountain Lions completed their 2026 season with another 3C2A Badminton Women’s Team State Championship, facing against the Southern Coast Conference leader, San Diego Mesa College Olympians, at the De Anza College gym on May 8.
This marks the team’s sixth state title, winning its first in 2013.
“Of all the ones we’ve been blessed with, this is the one we had to work hardest for,” Head Coach Mark Landefeld said. “They just found the moment to step up, which I did not know would be there until it happened.”
The game started competitively within the first batch of singles; De Anza won the first two matches, then San Diego Mesa closed the other matches out 3-1 to establish a standing score of 3-3.
Assistant coach Jay Dinh, 2013 championship player, emphasized the growing pains this team experienced losing twice to this team earlier in the season, 17-4 and 12-9.
“Each time, we kept it a little closer, a little closer, a little closer,” Dinh said. “The main thing we’ve been telling these girls, every time we play them, we want to see something new.”
The second set of games featured a doubles matchup, where De Anza established a 5-4 lead heading into the next batch of singles, closing in on the 11-game mark.
Coach Landefeld said his team finished strong, despite previous struggles and the Olympians’ prestige.
“We couldn’t always get our heads on straight,” Landefeld said. “When we went into the second round of singles, the team found its stride.”
The next set of single matches resulted in a 6-0 De Anza sweep, crowning the Mountain Lions as state champions once again.
Team captain Karina Chow, 19, sociology major, won all her matches in the 3 stages of the competition.
“I feel proud of them,” Chow said, teary-eyed in reference to watching her freshman teammates develop and contribute to the win. “I hope they can learn to carry our energy and motivation into next year and get us states (title) again.”
Assistant coach Natalie Zeitman, a 2019 De Anza badminton athlete, said she “couldn’t be prouder” of the team.
“They put in the hours, the time, the effort,” Zeitman said. “They try to better themselves as players.”
