Recently, prospective badminton team players tried out for the Arcadia High School (AHS) badminton team, for Boys Varsity, Boys JV, Girls Varsity, and Girls JV. On Oct. 25, initial tryouts were held in the evening at the North Gym. For the first round of tryouts, players were numbered off, then they warmed up. Afterwards, they “rallied”, where the players exchanged shots with the shuttle in play, practicing techniques such as smashes and drops. The coaches would watch them, noting who to send back for callbacks.

“The first day was just rallying, so the coaches can see who was good enough for callbacks, because callbacks were physical,” said AHS badminton player and freshman Jessica Wang, who also helped manage the tryouts. 

On Oct. 26, athletes received results on who would be called back for another round of tryouts. The next evening, those players did what the AHS JV and Varsity Badminton teams would normally do in training, such as conditioning, jumping, and suicides (a type of running drill). This was to see if the players’ physical ability was up to the JV team’s standards. Then, the players played doubles games against each other, rotating people to play against. 

This round of tryouts was much more physically demanding than the initial tryouts. 

AHS badminton player Coco Yu said that during callbacks, the players “did conditioning, suicides. It was really tiring. And then we did doubles.”

Since many of AHS’ best badminton players graduated this previous year, the team was looking for freshmen in particular, who had lots of skill in badminton and group work,

“We really looked at the compatibility and flexibility of each person there,” said Wang.

Many badminton players started preparing for tryouts before these dates. Some also took advantage of Open Gym Night, which were held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Here, players could practice their badminton skills from 7:00-10:00 p.m. 

During the summer, potential badminton players also attended AHS’ training program. Some also took private lessons for more individual attention, focusing on different aspects of the sport, such as footwork, hand-eye coordination, and net drops. This practice for badminton had benefits outside of tryouts, as well. 

“We learned better hand-eye coordination,” said freshman Elaine Zhou. “Badminton can help you with a lot of other sports, so that’s good.”

Results for this year’s badminton teams were posted on Monday, Oct. 31. Best of luck to this year’s AHS badminton players!

Photos by Katrina Reghitto