Irvine Valley's women's badminton team lost to Pasadena City in a hard-fought match for the Southern California Regional title on Wednesday at PCC's Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium.
The 12-9 win moved Pasadena on to the California Community College Athletic Association State Team Championship final next week against Fresno City.
The two-time defending South Coast Conference champion Lancers improved their record to 12-0 overall in knocking off a tough Irvine Valley team, scoring nine of the 12 singles wins for 75 percent of their team points. IVC, the Pacific Coast Athletic Champion team, dropped its first match of the team and finished its team season at 9-1.
Five of the nine singles matches played went to three sets.
PCC No. 1 player Rebecca Tzou, the state singles runner-up as a freshman, outlasted Irvine Valley's top two seeds, freshman Cora Tanuwidjaja, 21-18, 15-21, 21-12, and sophomore Jurate Foes, 21-15, 12-21, 21-18.
Tanuwidjaja and Foes each easily defeated Pasadena City No. 2 player Jennifer Delgado. Tanuwidjaja won, 21-7, 21-2 and Foes came out on top, 21-8, 21-9.
Playing at No. 3, Pasadena City's Sandra Maw swept Irvine Valley sophomore Peihong Jiang, 21-14, 21-13, and needed three sets to beat freshman Stella Shao, 19-21, 21-9, 21-6.
At No. 4 singles, Eugenia Mendez scored sweeps over Jiang, 21-14, 21-15, and Shao, 21-17, 21-8. Pasadena City's Ana Espinoza, playing in the No.5 spot, downed IVC sophomore Jessey Wang, 18-21, 21-17, 21-14 and lost to sophomore Tracy Nie, 15-21, 21-19, 21-15.
PCC's bottom ladder player and No. 6 Hong Yan Liu scored wins over Nie, 21-13, 26-24, and Wang, 21-10, 21-15.
Irvine Valley won three of the five doubles matches, but it wasn't enough.
In doubles, Tzou-Maw beat Foes-Jiang, 21-9, 21-11 in a big 2-team points match. Mendez-Espinoza scored a 21-9, 21-15 in No. 3 doubles over sophomore Bo Ma and Wang, 21-9, 21-15.
Irvine Valley got two wins in doubles from the team of Tanuwidjaja and Nie and one win from Foes and Jiang.
The Lasers will be back in the state championship singles and doubles competitions next Friday and Saturday.