At a Santa Clara University debate tournament held Nov. 16-18, three grade 9 students earned speaker awards. Esther Wong earned the 10th place speaker award, Divya Periyakoil earned fifth place and Sanil Rajput was second speaker. Additionally, Periyakoil and Rajput reached quarterfinals and the team of Ameek Singh, grade 9, and Alex Tuharsky, grade 10, advanced to semifinals.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, six Harker students competed in the Public Forum division of the Glenbrooks National Invitational. With 136 teams in attendance, Harker had two of its three teams make it into the round of 32. Juniors Sreyas Misra and Neil Khemani were eliminated in this round, while the team of Aneesh Chona and Anuj Sharma, both grade 12, made it to the round of 16.
Out of 272 total Public Forum speakers at the tournament, senior Neel Jani took home the seventh overall speaker award. Rounding out the top 25 speakers at the tournament, Sharma was named 20th overall speaker, Kiran Arimilli, grade 12, earned the 24th overall award, and Misra was named 25th speaker at the tournament.
Angela Ma, grade 11, was cast in San Jose Youth Ballet’s (SJYB) 2012 Nutcracker production as Snow Queen and Arabian Coffee. She has performed in three shows already and will be in three more shows Dec. 8-10. Mahika Halepete, grade 5 also performs, and Sofia Fernandez, grade 4, is a lamb and soldier.
Christopher Hildum, grade 10, Lauren Luspo and Ashley Cook, both grade 7, are all performing in Ballet San Jose’s Nutcracker starting Dec. 8. Hildum is in the battle scenes Although both Luspo and Cook are veterans of the Nutcracker, this year marks an important turning point as the production changes from the original choreography of Dennis Nahat to the choreography of Karen Gabay, the principal ballerina.
Wednesday marked a momentous occasion for both star Harker golfer Maverick McNealy, grade 12, and the Harker athletics program, as McNealy signed a letter of intent to attend Stanford University and compete in its golf program.
Surrounded by family, friends and faculty at Nichols Hall, McNealy received enthusiastic cheers and applause after signing the agreement.
“I’m very excited and I’m very thankful for this opportunity,” McNealy said. “I’m thinking I might play professionally. It depends on how I play in college and where I stack up against the other best golfers in the country. But the great thing about going to Stanford is that I know I’m going to get a great education, and that’s always something to fall back on if professional golf isn’t what I want to do.”
“We’re so proud of Maverick,” said Harker golf coach Ie-Chen Cheng. “This is our first golf signing, and no less, it’s Stanford, which is a very prestigious golf program.”
McNealy, who in July reached the final eight at USGA’s Junior Amateur Championship, is looking forward to making golf an important part of his time at Stanford. “I’ve only been playing golf pretty much half the year, for basically my whole life,” he said. “When I go to college I will be playing year-round, and we’ll see where that takes me with that actual level of practice and playing, and hopefully I play really well.”
Later in the summer, he won the Silver Creek Valley Junior and narrowly missed the semifinals at the Northern California Golf Association’s Amateur Match Play Championship.
“He was for the most part under the radar, but he really excelled during the summer,” Cheng said, adding that the young but disciplined senior “never complains. When he has a bad day, he’s the type of player who will go back to practice, go back to the range and work on his game and figure it out.”
“There’s no doubt he’s a very, very talented golfer,” said Dan Molin, Harker athletics director. “I’ve embarrassed myself on the course with him. He was very patient with me and he’s a phenomenal kid.”
A group of 12 Harker Public Forum debaters traveled to Apple Valley, Minn., during the first weekend of November to compete in the national invitational and Tournament of Champions octofinal qualifier. With 178 debaters vying for the title, Harker swept the top speaking awards in Public Forum debate and six students earned bids to the Tournament of Champions, to be held next May.
Aneesh Chona, grade 12, took top speaking honors, edging out junior Kevin Duraiswamy by a single adjusted point. Chona earned 118 out of 120 total adjusted points at the tournament and both Chona and Duraiswamy each dropped a mere five points total in the six preliminary rounds. Sreyas Misra, grade 11, rounded out the top three by taking third, only a half of an adjusted point behind Duraiswamy!
Harker had three more debaters place in the top 15 speakers with senior Reyhan Kader placing ninth, senior Anuj Sharma placing 12th and sophomore Aadyot Bhatnagar earning 13th overall speaker.
Three teams made it to elimination rounds, with senior Kiran Arimilli and junior Sebi Nakos being recognized by the tournament for narrowly missing the cut as 33rd seed. Duraiswamy and Kader as well as Misra and junior Neil Khemani won their first elimination round and were eliminated in the octofinal round of the tournament. Sharma and Chona won the first two elimination rounds before losing on a 2-1 decision in the quarterfinal round, finishing in the top eight teams at the tournament.
Two Harker alumni from the Class of 2012, Aakash Jagadeesh and Akshay Jagadeesh, traveled to Minnesota to help coach the team and judge rounds at the tournament.
At a forensics tournament in Las Vegas from Oct. 25-28, Srikar Pyda, grade 11, entered elimination rounds as the third overall seed at the tournament. He made it to the octofinals.
That same weekend, at the University of the Pacific, 12 Public Forum debaters traveled to Stockton to compete at the University of the Pacific tournament. More than 100 debaters competed in the varsity Public Forum division.
Seniors David Grossman and Nikhil Agarwal went undefeated in preliminary rounds and made it to the top four teams before being eliminated on a 2-1 decision in semifinals.
Sophomores Vamsi Gadiraju and Nikita Mittal as well as Eesha Chona and Aarti Kheskani, both grade 9, made it to the top eight before being eliminated in quarterfinals.
Maneesha Panja, Sebi Nakos and Jithin Vellian, all grade 11, and Nikhil Kishore, grade 10, were eliminated in the octofinal round. Sophomores Andrew Jin and David Lin missed elimination rounds by a mere 0.3 of a speaker point! Gadiraju was also named the overall second place Public Forum speaker at the tournament.
At the Saint Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational in Dallas held Oct. 18-22, Steven Wang, grade 10, reached the finals in United States Extemporaneous Speaking, taking sixth place overall. He also advanced to quarterfinals (top 23) in International Extemporaneous Speaking. With these results Wang is now ranked among the top few extempore in the country in several forensics websites’ ranking systems. Also at St. Mark’s, Saachi Jain, grade 11, reached Congress finals (top 13) against a very stout Texas field in her first tournament of the season.
Sophomores Leo Yu and Ayush Midha reached the final round of the St. Mark’s Sophomore Hoe-Down and lost on a 2-1 decision. Midha also participated in the Bush Institute Economics Debates, earning first place and a $2,000 scholarship.
On Oct. 21 at the League Congress tournament at Summit High School, four Harker students reached the final round (top 16): Arjun Goyal, grade 11, Nikhil Ramgiri, grade 9, Kathir Sundarraj, grade 12, and Warren Zhang, grade 12. Sundarraj went on to earn second place overall in the tournament with his finals performance, in addition to garnering a best presiding officer award in his preliminary house. Arjun Kumar, grade 11, also earned a best presiding officer award, and narrowly missed finals in part because of his willingness to serve his house in this role. Congratulations to all 13 students who competed in this tournament on an outstanding team effort. Harker tied Bellarmine for most awards with each school taking seven of the possible 23 trophies.
Twelve Harker Public Forum debaters flew to New York for the Bronx Round Robin and New York City Invitational from Oct. 17 to Oct. 21. Despite the red-eye, and going straight into a debate round the minute they arrived, Neil Khemani and Sreyas Misra, both grade 11, won seven out of 10 decisions in their pod at the Bronx Round Robin where they took second place in their pod and missed clearing the finals by a single ballot!
During the New York City Invitational, which boasts more than 230 Public Forum debaters competing in the division, Harker had two teams make it to the top 32 and clear into elimination rounds. Juniors Maneesha Panja and Sebi Nakos made it to the round of 32 before being defeated on a 2-1 decision. Khemani and Misra took down the first seed at the tournament in the round of 32 before being eliminated on a 2-1 decision in octofinals. Misra was also named the 17th overall speaker at the tournament.
This was the first national circuit tournament for many of the students in attendance. However, they all worked incredibly hard and left a positive impression on the debate community.
Several Harker upper school students have gotten politically active by joining the San Jose Youth Advisory Council (YAC), a group of high school students that presents issues raised by local youth to the San Jose City Council and also keeps youths aware of issues that affect them as citizens. “We want to make sure that youth voices are heard as they are not only members of the community but will also be tomorrow’s adults,” said YAC member Aneesh Chona, grade 12. “Ultimately, we strive to increase awareness of the available resources that provide guidance and support to youth and encourage active civic participation.”
Other Harker members of the YAC are Zareen Choudhury, Katie Gu and Connie Li, all grade 11, and Nathan Dalal, Rishabh Jain and Sachin Peddada, all grade 10.
Chona recently started the Youth Against Abuse program, which he says is aimed at curbing domestic violence. “Empirically, studies have shown that those who commit domestic violence will only stop their harmful actions if they are aware of the consequences of those actions, something I became aware of when I was researching for past debate topics,” he said. With this in mind, the Youth Against Abuse program holds essay contests and petitions and plans to create educational videos to raise youth awareness of the effects of domestic violence.
Other activities of the YAC include tutoring children at the Starbird Community Center, publishing the literary magazine Overture and youth awareness magazine 1Voice and hosting community events.
For the past couple months, thanks to a corporate matching gift program from the Cisco Foundation, Harker’s upper school students, faculty and staff have enjoyed seeing digital signs manufactured by Cisco around the Saratoga campus.
In early October, during a recent event thanking Harker parents who work for Cisco for being a part of the company’s employee matching program which made the signage possible, Harker officially expressed its gratitude for all they have donated.
The Oct. 4 evening gathering was held in the lobby of the upper school’s main administration building. About 40 people were in attendance, with Dan Hudkins, Harker’s director of instructional technology, giving a presentation specifically about how the digital signs from the Cisco philanthropic program are being used.
The new signs offer information about upcoming events, lunch menus, sports scores and more. The hardware for the project was made available to Harker through a special Cisco donation program, wherein Cisco employees can have three dollars added to every dollar they donate if the donation is made in Cisco products equal to that value.
Due to the coordinated efforts of Harker parents employed at Cisco, the school has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on Cisco products, including the digital signage, in the last several years. Digital signs are tentatively expected to appear at other Harker campuses by the spring of 2013.
“I think it’s great for the Harker community as well as for allowing students access to not only the Internet but also the new technology,” said alumni parent Haidung Nguyen (Devin Nguyen ’12), who works for Cisco and coordinated Cisco/parent donations for the past five years. Taking over from Nguyen as Cisco program coordinator this year is another dedicated Harker parent, Jatinder Kaur.
“This is what Cisco’s vision is …. Changing how we work, play and learn,” added Randy Huang (Grace, grade 5; Jason, grade 6), who works for Cisco and was involved in the program.
Hudkins credited Cisco with enabling Harker to provide more bandwidth, control and service without having to spend as much money. “Because of the generosity of Harker parents who work at Cisco and the Cisco Foundation, we can do more and we can do it better than we could if we had to it otherwise,” he said.
The Winged Post sophomore reporters Sindhu Ravuri and Jessica Chang contributed to this story.
Harker athletes are deep in their seasons – check out the results!
Cross Country In the first cross country league meet of the season, Corey Gonzales, grade 10, finished second behind Menlo’s top runner. This week, he got his revenge, finishing first after leading the race from start to finish, beating Menlo’s Matt Myers by five seconds. The finish earned him a notice in the San Jose Mercury’s Highlight Reel section of the paper (page D9 – the link is not yet online) for his first career cross country victory. Tyler Yeats, grade 12, placed 24th. For the girls, Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12, placed 12th and Claudia Tischler, grade 11, placed 14th in one of their best runs ever. The squads run in the final league meet on Nov. 1.
Water Polo
Girls water polo defeated Monta Vista 9-8 this Thursday in double overtime at the Singh Aquatic Center on their senior day to improve to 18-5 overall and 9-2 in league play. After their victory, the girls are now tied for first place in the league. Keri Clifford, grade 12, scored four goals, and seniors Rachel Yanovsky and Sonia Sidhu, Anna Levine, grade 11, and Anushka Das, grade 10, added the rest of the scoring. The girls finish the regular season this week before continuing on to the league tournament next week.
Boys water polo lost to Lynbrook 13-10 last week, with goals scored by Gilad Nilo, Ryan Hume and Karan Das-Grande, all grade 12, and Eric Holt and Billy Bloomquist, both grade 10.
Volleyball
Girls varsity volleyball defeated King’s Academy last week three games to one behind 15 kills from Shreya Dixit, grade 10. The girls’ record now stands at 18-6 overall and 7-2 in league play. This Thursday, they play ECP at Blackford.
Golf Girls golf competed in the league CCS qualifier Oct. 24, at Poplar Creek in San Mateo placing second as a team overall, just behind Castilleja. Junior Kristine Lin won the entire tournament, shooting a 73, and senior Patricia Huang shot a career best 79 placing fourth overall! Now we wait to see if the team qualified for CCS….stay tuned.
Last week, the girls rebounded from two consecutive losses to Castilleja to beat Mercy 235-277 at Los Lagos Golf Courses. Leading the charge was Huang, earning her second medalist honors of the season with a 36. Also chipping in great scores were Lin with a 37, and Daphne Liang, grade 9, who shot a 49. On their senior day this week, the girls defeated Notre Dame 221-244. The win put the Eagles in second place in the WBAL with a 6-3 record.
Tennis
Girls tennis defeated Notre Dame 6-1 on their senior day last Friday and traveled to Menlo earlier this week for
what could be a league championship showdown.
Football
The boys lost their senior night game to Monta Vista last Friday in front of a large, spirited Harker crowd. Spenser Quash, grade 12, threw a touchdown pass to Kevin Moss, grade 11, for the Eagles’ lone score. The boys travel to Fremont High this Friday.
Anticipation ran high at Harker’s lower school on Oct. 4 when, just before noon, the grade 3 class assembled on the blacktop eagerly watching for the yellow bus from the upper school to appear, heralding the arrival of their sophomore Eagle Buddies.
Holding signs indicative of their homerooms so that their older buddies could find them, the third graders excitedly chanted “Eagle Buddies!” as the bus finally pulled to a stop in front of the Bucknall campus.
Prior to meeting at the lower school, the buddies had corresponded with letters and pictures, but this event marked the first time they met in person. The buddies will follow one another and continue to bond over the course of the next several years in the successful mentoring program.
“They couldn’t wait for the big kids to get off the bus,” noted Elise Robichaud ’84, a grade 3 teacher. “All morning they kept asking ‘is it time yet?’”
Alumna Robichaud, who is also a Harker parent (Jonathan Schwartz, grade 8; Kurt Schwartz, grade 9), noted that she first started working at Harker “fresh out of college” and recalled having taught some of the sophomore buddies when they were younger.
After the buddies united with one another, they listened to welcoming remarks from Ken Allen, the lower school’s dean of students. Then all the students ate lunch together on the main field and were free to play sports or work on craft tables located at the edges of the turf.
Enjoying their hot dog lunch with their new younger buddy, Brooklyn Cicero, sophomores Ankita Pannu and Shannon Su called the Eagle Buddies program a great way to allow younger kids to get to know older students.
“We had a lot of fun looking for Brooklyn when we got off the bus, we were so excited to see each other in real life!” said Su, recalling how Cicero had previously introduced herself and stated her interests in her letter. An excited Cicero agreed, adding that she also enjoyed playing tetherball with her new older friends.
Following closing remarks on the main field, all the buddies said goodbye and the sophomores returned to the upper school campus. Upcoming Eagle Buddies events for these two grades include a pajama day, service project and book drive. They will also continue to correspond via Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day cards.
The Siemens Foundation announced today this year’s semifinalists and regional finalists in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Ten Harker students, four finalists and six semifinalists, were among the students named. Harker students submitted a total of 24 group and individual projects for the contest. One third of the finalists from California are Harker students. They are: Ashvin Swaminathan (individual), Paulomi Bhattacharya (individual), Rohan Chandra (individual), all grade 12, and Zareen Choudhury (group), grade 11. This year’s semifinalists are: Andrew Luo (individual), Kevin Susai (individual) and Ravi Tadinada (group), all grade 12, Anika Gupta (group) and Saachi Jain (group), both grade 11, and Andrew Zhang (group), grade 10. Each of the regional finalists were awarded $1,000.
All of the students spent many hours doing advanced research and analysis for the projects they submitted for the contest, which has thousands of entrants every year.
Over the weekend of Sept. 29, 27 upper school students traveled to Ashland, Ore., to visit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), which was nearing the end of its 2012 season.
The students saw performances of the Shakespeare plays “Troilus and Cressida,” “Henry V,” “Romeo and Juliet” and a modern-day take on “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” which takes place just after the Iowa caucuses and features a United States senator as the main character.
Students also had the opportunity to participate in a workshop with OSF actors on the finer points of acting and production, and were taken on a tour of the festival’s three theaters.