Irvine Valley's women's badminton team moved a step closer to wrapping up the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference title with a 12-9 win over Grossmont at home on Wednesday afternoon.
The Lasers beat Grossmont, their biggest competitor in the conference, for the second time this year.
Irvine Valley continued to stay unbeaten on the season, improving its record to 5-0 both overall and in conference.
The Lasers have four conference matches left, but just one against Grossmont. IVC could clinch a conference title officially with wins at San Diego City on Friday and then at San Diego Mesa next Wednesday.
IVC already has two shutout wins over Mesa and another easy victory over City.
Wednesday's match went down to the wire and was decided with a big victory in the first round by freshman No. 6 player Neeyati Ajmera and then a win by the No. 2 doubles team of freshman Emily Yang and sophomore Anne Olsen.
Ajmera rallied to win 20-22, 21-17, 24-22 over Ryo Fujimoto.
And in the final match of the afternoon, Yang and Olsen came out on top, 21-19, 16-21, 21-19, over Grossmont's Megumi Tonouchi and Lisa Vu to give Irvine Valley the overall win.
IVC showed its depth on the day with sophomore Jessie Mei and Amjera winning both of her matches at No. 5 and No. 6 singles, respectively.
Irvine Valley also got a win each from singles players Michelle Chen (No. 1), Chien Tu (No. 3) and Olsen (No. 4).
The No. 1 doubles team of Chen and Tu earned a victory and the No. 3 doubles duo of Mei and freshman Sally Li won its lone match, 21-12, 21-18.
