On May 7, the Badminton PAL tournament was held at Hillsdale High School. Sequoia High School’s badminton players battled against other schools from around the area trying to win. Unexpectedly, there was a Sequoia versus Sequoia match-up in the boys singles consolation bracket. Senior Tav Gur played sophomore Akaal Gohil, both with a chance to go through to the next round in the boys singles tournament. 

The way the PAL tournament works is that each school sends their top two teams from each category such as boys and girls singles and boys/girls and mixed doubles. Gur and Gohil were the top two boys singles players from Sequoia therefore they represented Sequoia in the boys singles. The tournament is a double elimination format with a “losers” or consolation bracket. 

“The tournament is organised to separate competitors from the same schools, but since Akaal and I got far enough into the losers bracket, we had to play each other,” Gur said.

  It was a hard fought game for both players, but it wasn’t too competitive.

 “It was very fun to play against my own teammate, and I tried to keep it lighthearted between us since we are good friends,” Gur said. “Due to our similar skill level we play each other in practice literally all the time, so the game was quite predictable.” Gur and Gohil found that in this game they put effort in but also had fun at the same time. 

“We love to play with each other and every time we play, I feel like we get closer as teammates. We still played our 100% though, and it was a very good game,” Gohil said.

In high school badminton the score is kept by a volunteer officiator. Sequoia sophomore badminton player Nikhil Rasiah volunteered to keep score of the game and he agrees that this was a fun moment for the badminton team. 

“It was most definitely enjoyable to watch and they both brought great energy to the match.” Rasiah said. 

At the end of the game Gur won the match.

“I think we both took the result of the game very well, since of course, it was not the first time that we competed against each other before, like during practice,” Gur said.  

“I’m sad to have lost to him, but also happy that no matter who won, Sequoia had someone moving onto the next round regardless” Gohil said.

Tav would advance over Akaal but then fell in the next match in the tournament.

”I lost my next match after this one, which meant my tournament was over, but I still had lots of fun playing someone I knew very well in this very official competition,” Gur said.