Kyle Cooper is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Deer Valley High School for AZPreps365.com

The Deer Valley badminton team won two singles matches and two doubles matches, but that was not enough Thursday night as the Skyhawks fell to Chaparral, 5-4.

The singles flights kicked off with the Skyhawks’ No. 1 Ashlynn Jensen falling short to the Firebirds’ No. 1, Hadley Huffman, 21-19, 12-21, 21-14.

Jensen took the loss in stride.

"Working hard pays off," she said. "She and I worked each other and made each other run. It was who can outlast the other in the end. We went to three. Splits are good."

Payton Taylor, Deer Valley’s No. 2, followed up with a loss to Chaparral’s Emerson Lewis, 21-14, 21-16.

The Skyhawks' No. 3, Jillain Enlow, and No. 4, Alyse Ohanian, secured wins over their opponents. Enlow won her flight 21-16, 21-19 over Brianna Warner. Ohanian defeated Mckenzie Tower, 21-18, 21-15.

Despite losing the match as a whole, Enlow was proud of her performance and her team’s effort.

In the final two single's flights, Deer Valley suffered two more losses. No. 5 Samantha Holmes lost 21-17, 21-15 to Chaparral's Addie Siedel and No. 6 Miranda Baca lost 21-16, 21-11 to Addie Scott.

With only two singles wins, Deer Valley needed to win all of their doubles flights to win the match. Jensen and Taylor teamed up for doubles once again and defeated Chaparral's Sophia Peries and Lewis, 21-11, 21-14.

With the final match deciding the victory for the Skyhawks, coach Kenny Hosler watched his team drop a disappointing last set as Sliman and Baca couldn't pull through against Seidel and Addie Scott, losing 21-11, 12-21, 21-8.

Hosler was proud of his team's performance.

“We haven’t ever beat them in school history,” Hosler said. “The girls knew that they would match us pretty well. We always talk about how we don’t predetermine outcomes. Last year we lost to them 9-0. So this year it came down to the last doubles match. We have improved from last year to this year.”

Deer Valley is now ranked No. 4 in the Division Northwest standings while Chaparral is No 2.

With only two games remaining in their season, Hosler is looking to continue forward and start concentrating on the playoffs.

"I'm trying to keep the girls focused to finish the season," Hosler said. "We don't want this loss to derail us from the big picture. Learn from this and keep up this focus for the next two games that we have and carry it into the playoffs and see what we can do."

Deer Valley (8-3, 4-2) will host the North Canyon Rattlers (5-5, 1-4) at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Chaparral (10-1, 5-1) will host North Canyon next Thursday at 4 p.m.