Badminton Players of the Year: Jakin and Raeka Lin

Despite being one best doubles teams in Northern California, the only way to qualify for the section tournament is through a league tournament. Since they did not compete in the PALs in 2017, they were ineligible to play at CCS.

“This year, we chose badminton over history,” Jakin said.

Much to the chagrin of the rest of Northern California. After capturing the PAL title, the Lin sisters won their second CCS championship in three years. They could not duplicate their 2016 Nor Cal championship in 2018. They did, however, make it to the finals and solidify their selection as the Daily Journal’s Badminton Players of the Year.

“We kind of knew we wanted to play together again,” Jakin said. “We just wanted to live up to what we did in 2016 and I wanted to play with my sister one last time.”

As anyone with siblings knows, it can sometime be a burden to be with your brother or sister all the time. So to avoid any kind of burnout on the badminton court, the sisters split their play during the regular season. Raeka continued to play singles, moving into the No. 1 spot, while Jakin teamed with Katrina Hui to play at No. 1 girls’ doubles.

“I just wanted to rely on myself,” said Raeka Lin, who will enter her senior year at South City in the fall. “Whenever I play doubles, I always feel like I had to depend on someone else.”

Jakin, on the other hand, was looking to change things up for her senior year. After three years of playing singles during the regular season, she wanted a different challenge during her last season of high school.

“For senior year I wanted to play doubles and get closer to my teammates,” Jakin said. “Sometimes when we play too much together, we start to argue a bit more. … [Playing doubles together all season] would have been too much.”

But once the postseason rolled around, the two became the dynamic duo. The pair was seeded No. 2 in the CCS girls’ doubles tournament, behind Milpitas’ Zoe Lu and Katelin Ngo. The Lins cruised through their first two matches, winning in straight sets, setting up a winner’s bracket final with the Milpitas duo. The Lins dropped the first set, 21-10, but rallied to win the next two sets, 21-9 and 21-13, to move into the championship match.

They had to wait for Lu and Ngo to come through the consolation bracket of the double-elimination final to meet Lu and Ngo again in the championship round. And like they did in their first meeting, the South City tandem dropped the first set. But like they did in their previous match, the Lins finished strong, winning the CCS title with a 15-21, 21-16, 21-11 victory.

“Since we both knew our opponents, and had played against them in (junior) tournaments, we knew it was going to be tough,” Raeka said of facing the top-seeded Trojans.

By making the CCS finals, the Lins had already assured themselves a spot in the Nor Cal tournament and, like they did in 2016, the Lins made a beeline to the Nor Cal championship match. After a first-round bye, the Lins cruised in their second-round match, winning 21-16, 21-11 and again in the semifinals, 21-15, 21-14 to advance to the title match.

Unlike the 2016 tournament, the 2018 Nor Cal tournament changed to a single-elimination format. So when the Lins got to the 2016 championship match through the winner’s bracket, they had to be beaten twice to be denied the crown. They did lose that first match, but rebounded to win the title in the finale.

The 2018 edition was single-elimination, however, and while the Lins advanced to the championship match, they were denied by a team from Mission San Jose-Fremont. It was only their second loss in 16 CCS and Nor Cal matches.

“I think our playing styles are pretty different. I’m more about smashing in the back and my sister is better at placing the bird,” Jakin said. “Together we make a pretty good team.”