UEL Women’s Badminton team played and lost their first game, of the season on Wednesday, 8-0 to Brunel University.
Contrary to the score UEL’s performance was not without merit. This was their first game as a new team after some members of the team graduated and subsequently left at the end of last year, including captain, Nisha Patel.
Remaining members Chloe Stephenson and Abbey Conroy were joined by new recruits Lahari Parvathaneni, Chloe Macleod and Muna Berhe to complete the team on Wednesday.
Learning Curve
Finishing second in the league last season, Brunel turned up looking strong but UEL used the match as a good experience to bond as a new team and try out new skills within the matches.
Although UEL didn’t win a game they proved that the quality and strength is there and will develop through the season with more training.
Doubles pair Macleod and Berhe playing their first match together for UEL made a good impression as part of the team. Bringing the score to 8-21 in one of their games showed what they are capable of only a few weeks into training.
New singles player, Lahari Parvathaneni also made a promising start to the season managing to score 9 points against the opposition bringing one of her games to 9-21.
Words of Wisdom
Before the match captain Chloe Stephenson gave the team talk to the girls making it clear for them to have fun and enjoy the match, and that it didn’t matter what the end scores were, but that they have a good experience being part of the team.
This echoed throughout the players even after the defeat as Macleod reflected on her enjoyment of the game: “It was my first time playing a match, but it was really fun.”
Macleod also stated she was nervous before her first time playing but quickly got into her flow: “In the end I realised that I shouldn’t be nervous and should just try my best and when I was thinking like that it was really fun.”
Berhe added after the game that she found the experience fun and was glad to have been apart of it.
She’s looking forward to the upcoming fixtures: “I’m sure we can come back and give them all we’ve got.”
Next up is an away match which sees UEL face SOAS on Wednesday 24th October.
