Updated: Girls V-Ball and Water Polo League Champs! Gonzales 2nd in XCountry; Records for Golfers Huang, Lin; Tennis Wins Doubles Championship!

Fall sports are still in action as teams go into playoffs or wrap up their seasons. The big news today is the Harker varsity girls volleyball team took the CCS championship last night. Watch for the update as details become available!

Football
The Fremont Firebirds and Harker Eagles lit up the scoreboard last Friday night in a football game that featured 21 touchdowns as Fremont defeated Harker 90-56. Harker led 50-49 at halftime and finished the game with 571 yards of total offense, led by senior quarterback Spenser Quash’s aerial assault on the Firebird defense. Quash completed 28 of 47 passes for 422 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions. Kevin Moss, grade 11, and Robert Deng, grade 12, each caught two touchdowns, and Christian Williams, grade 11, caught the fifth. Quash also ran for three touchdowns. Harker plays its final game of the season at Homecoming tonight night versus Lynbrook.

The boys’ water polo team placed fourth at the Homestead Tournament over the weekend, defeating Half Moon Bay but losing to Carlmont and Burlingame. Against Half Moon Bay, Karan Das-Grande, grade 12, netted four goals, with Ryan Hume, grade 12, scoring three. Eric Holt, grade 10, Gilad Nilo, grade 12, and Jeremy Binkley, grade 10, all added a goal apiece. For his efforts, Das-Grande was named first team all-tournament. The boys play in the league tournament starting this Thursday evening against Lynbrook.

The #1-seeded girls water polo team earned their first ever league championship yesterday by defeating Mountain View 9-5 in the semifinal match of the league tournament and improve to 20-5 overall.  The league championship qualifies them for the CCS tournament which begins next week. Congratulations, ladies, on your accomplishments and for making Harker history!

Patricia Huang, grade 12, and Kristine Lin, grade 11, each played in the CCS golf championships this week in Carmel. Huang ended her Harker golf career on a high note, shooting an 82 to finish 30th place at Rancho Canada. It was a record-breaking week for her, as she became the first Harker golfer to qualify for CCS as an individual all four years of her career. Her score of 82 represents the lowest score ever carded by a Harker girls golfer at CCS. In Carmel, Lin followed up with an 85, placing 38 out of 90 participants, and this week became the first female Harker golfer to win the regular season individual title. To cap it off, she won the league championships with an impressive score of 73 at Poplar Creek.

Daria Karakoulka, grade 12, and Katia Mironova, grade 11, defeated Crystal Springs Tuesday in straight sets to win the WBAL doubles championship. With the win, the duo will represent Harker at the CCS Individual Tournament Nov. 19-20 at Courtside Club in Los Gatos. Dora Tzeng, grade 11, also played well, but lost to #1 seed Menlo in the semifinals. Tzeng won the first set, lost the second set in a close tiebreaker, and lost 6-4 in the third set. Tzeng, seeded #3, nearly pulled off the upset despite serving underhand.

Varsity girls volleyball won the league championship, defeating Mercy-Burlingame 25-21, 25-20, 25-15. The team needed the victory to become league tri-champions with a 20-6 overall record and 10-2 in league. By virtue of the league tie-breaking system, Harker receives the first seed from our league into the CCS tournament, which starts next week.

Cross Country
The teams did not qualify for the CCS championships, but four individuals did qualify for the Nov. 10  sectional championships at Toro Park in Salinas. Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12 (19:24, third) and Claudia Tischler, grade 11 (19:41, sixth place and cracked the top 10 in the league for the first time) ran their personal bests on the 2.95-mile course. The girls team missed qualifying by .3 seconds. Bhattacharya’s time of 19:24 is a new school record.

On the boys’ side, sophomore Corey Gonzales (second) and senior Tyler Yeats (25th) will run in the CCS meet. Gonzales’ time of 16:12 is a new school record.