courtesy Robert Lewis - Sports Information Director at Pasadena City College

You have to go back to 2001 to find the last time the Irvine Valley College women's badminton team lost a match. The Lasers accomplished the remarkable feat of a third straight undefeated season Friday in winning the state team title at the 2004 Citi California Community Colleges Commission on Athletics Badminton Championships.

Irvine Valley ran its winning streak to 46 matches in picking up its third straight state title with an 18-3 victory over Skyline College. Skyline, the North region's top team, has finished as state runner-up three times (2001, 2002, 2004).

IVC finished the season at 15-0, while Skyline, the Coast Conference champs, suffered its first and only loss at 6-1. The finals match was played at Pasadena City College's Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium. For Lasers Head Coach Martin McGrogan, the 2003-2004 sports season certainly is a memorable one. In 2003, he coached the IVC men's soccer team to the state title and now has four team championship trophies in a span of just three years.

"Somebody up there must like me," McGrogan said. "When you win three straight championships, you can't call it luck though. We had a very deep team this year, and this was the strongest team we've ever had. Most teams have a pretty good No. 1 player and not much else. We had two outstanding No. 1 and 2 players and then while there is a drop off from those two, our No. 3 and No. 4 players were outplaying their opponents all season. We had nine solid players."

While the match was mostly anticlimactic, Skyline's No. 1 player and freshman Stephanie Cheung proved to surprise coaches, players and fans by knocking off IVC's powerful Yeh sisters, Rulan and Rulien, for two of Skyline's three total team points.

Cheung first downed Rulien Yeh (No. 2), 11-9, 11-0, to hand Yeh only her second loss in singles all season. Then, Cheung dominated identical twin Rulan Yeh, 11-4, 11-2, to send Rulan to her only singles defeat in 2004. Rulan Yeh, the No. 1 seed in the individual championships, had earlier taken only 11 minutes to down Skyline's No. 2 player Celine Sin, 11-1, 11-0.

IVC's No. 3 player Brita Kjalstrom swept her two singles matches, as did No. 4 Jenna Chiu. The Lasers had not only four returning players from last year's champion team, they had two players who returned from the 2002 team. Sophomore No. 5 player Hanna Chao, who sat out the 2003 season, also won her two matches. "This was a little tougher than last year," Kjalstrom said of Skyline compared to beating De Anza in 2002.

"It was a lot of fun playing with the twins because they are not only good players, they bring spirit to the entire team. You see them playing well, then you want to raise your level of play."

The Yehs, the defending individual state doubles champions, flew past Cheung and Gloria Cheung (no relation), 15-3, 15-1 in No. 1 doubles and also had an easy time in routing Skyline No. 2 Sin and Lisa Payte, 15-1, 15-1. IVC swept all five doubles matches.

The 5-foot-10 Kjalstrom (from Sweden) teamed with Ruby Hui in an exciting 5-15, 15-9, 15-9 win in No. 2 doubles over Cheung and Cheung. Hui served as IVC went on a 4-0 run to finish off the deciding set.

McGrogan talked about his team's three year run.

"The players make it all happen, and we've been fortunate to have some good ones in our program," he said. "But our players are like a family. Even players who have finished playing are coming back to root us on. It's great to see that togetherness."