A year ago, it was heartbreak for the Patrick Henry High School badminton team. The six-time CIF champions fell narrowly to Mira Mesa for the title
Fast-forward to 2025, and the Patriots found themselves once again in the Championship match — the program’s fifth appearance in the past seven years.
This year, though, there would be no tears.
Patrick Henry avenged last season’s loss by taking down Del Norte 10-7, claiming the section title.
”The goal and the mindset from the beginning of the season was to get back to this point,” said Patrick Henry coach Trustin Nguyen.
“Last season, I think we fell short in the mental game. This year, with our ten seniors, they helped lead and carry this team. Today was a full team effort.”
Along the singles lines, neither team was able to draw an advantage with things being knotted at 4-4. Patrick Henry’s John Savvides secured a three-set victory over Jeremy Shelton, winning 25-23, 18-21, 23-21. Savvides held off match point twice in the third set.
”When we went to overtime, I just thought to myself, this point might be the difference between us winning and losing,” said John Savvides, “Last year when I played, I went three sets as well, and we lost 9-8. I knew in my heart that I had to push as hard as I could to not let the same mistake happen twice.”
At the conclusion of Savvides’ marathon match, it appeared Patrick would leave the singles portion of the title match up by one.
That was, until Del Norte’s Ethan Quan stormed back for a 21-19, 13-21, 21-19, three-set victory of his own. Quan’s comeback featured a 7-0 run in the middle of the third. Erasing what was at the time a 14-7 deficit.
After a gridlocked slate of singles matches, Patrick Henry made their move in the afternoon’s doubles and mixed doubles matches.
In boys’ and girls’ doubles slate, Patrick Henry went 4-2, pulling them ahead 8-6 in the match. In girls’ doubles, Kayla Pham and Alexis Green secured the most critical win on the doubles slate with a clean 21-10, 21-17, two-set victory.
After helping her team pull ahead by two matches, Kayla Pham and mixed doubles partner Timmy Huynh delivered the final blow to Del Norte. As the pairing cruised to a 21-11, 21-12 two-set victory, clinching the CIF title for Patrick Henry.
Their victory was highlighted by a massive scoring runs in both the first and second set. Using a 9-1 run in the first set to get ahead 19-10, before then going on a 8-1 run in the second set to take command of a 18-6.
”Kayla has been playing great all season long, and she stepped up again today. “Her best match of the season was last Thursday against CCA, and it has stayed up at that level since.” Nguyen said, “And Timmy, he is someone we can always count on, he kept pounding today.”
Track and field
Mt. Miguel’s Arrington misses event with apparent injury
A pall was cast over the CIF San Diego Section track and field season on Friday, when Mt. Miguel’s Brandon Arrington — the defending state and section record-holding 100- and 200-meter champion — pulled up at the end of the Grossmont League 100-meter championships with an apparent injury.
Arrington ran on the Matadors’ 4×100 relay team that clocked a season-best 42.00 and finished fourth in the 100 in 10.98. Those performances qualified him to compete in the Division 2 championships.
However, the section record-holder and state leader in the 100 (10.21) and 200 (20.35) did not run the longer race with what is believed to be either a hamstring cramp or pull.
Seasonal section bests for the boys were recorded by Mission Bay’s Jayden Bailey in the boys 300 hurdles at 37.64 and Cathedral Catholic’s Steven Evans-Glynn in the long jump at 23-11 ¼ in the Western League finals and Helix’s 4×100 relay team (41.79) and 4×400 relay (3:18.72) in the Grossmont Conference championships.
For the girls, Central Union’s Alana Ortiz took the section lead in the high jump at 5-5 in the IVL finals as most of the front-runners, like twins Makenna and Morgan Herbst at Carlsbad, competed in at least three events to try to help their teams win league titles.
— STEVE BRAND
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