This article originally appeared in the spring 2014 Harker Quarterly.
What an amazing winter it was for Harker sports! While the East Coast was blanketed in snow, the sun shone bright on California – and nowhere did it shine brighter than on Harker’s athletes, who pushed further and, for some, achieved more than they ever had before. That’s right, while California faced a drought, Harker’s athletes ended two droughts of their own, with one team winning a league championship for the first time in school history and another becoming the first the boys team of any sport to qualify for the section finals. After a fall that saw Harker athletes take home a CCS Division IV cross country league championship, WBAL cross country championship and a WBAL women’s golf championship, Harker’s teams kept rolling all through the winter, making this a year to remember for Harker athletics. Let’s get to it!
Soccer
This was one of the greatest girls soccer seasons in Harker’s history, as the team won the most victories ever for a Harker girls soccer team en route to a 12-3-1 overall record and a league championship. The season ended when the team lost a heartbreaker to King’s Academy in the last 30 seconds of the game. A King’s Academy goal gave Harker’s rivals a 2-1 win and catapulted them into the CCS tournament, stunning Harker.
Harker’s achievements in the WBAL were well-recognized this year. Out of four All-League team awards, Harker received three. Freshman Joelle Anderson won forward of the year, junior Gabi Gupta won defender of the year and senior Alicia Clark was recognized as goalkeeper of the year. Harker also saw five athletes make First Team All-League and another make Second Team All-League, with two honorable mentions. On First Team All-League was senior Julia Fink, juniors Safia Khouja and Nikita Parulkar, and freshmen Kailee Gifford and Lyndsey Mitchell. On Second Team All-League was junior Alyssa Amick, while sophomore Sadhika Malladi and freshman Anuva Mittal were each awarded honorable mentions.
The girls, meanwhile, averaged a jaw-dropping 4.75 goals per game, which befits a league champion. More than a third of those goals – a staggering figure – were scored by Joelle Anderson, who scored 27. Kailee Gifford scored 18. Anderson also had 19 assists, giving her an average – an average! – of 4.6 points per game, while Gifford had 11 assists and an average of 3.1 points per game. Nikita Parulkar averaged 1.3 points per game.
Harker students are not just talented athletes, they are also incredible people, whose sportsmanship and character unite the community. With their season over, the girls had one last great act left in them. The squad changed the start time of its year-end banquet to be able to travel to watch the varsity boys basketball team in its CCS tournament game. The gesture was just the latest reminder of the great work Harker’s athletes do both on and off the field.
Meanwhile, the boys finished the year with a tremendous 11-6-2 record. Despite winning nearly two-thirds of their games, the boys missed the CCS tournament. Sophomore Omar Hamade led the team for the year with 15 goals, and sophomore Oisin Coveney cracked double digits as well with 10. Jeremiah Anderson, grade 11, led the team with 10 assists, while Hamade and Kevin Moss, grade 12, had 8 and 7, respectively. That means that Hamade led the team for the year with 38 points, finishing with an average of more than two points per game, while Coveney and Anderson each averaged more than a point per game. Overall, the team averaged about 2.7 goals per game.
Basketball
This winter the boys, led by coach Butch Keller, made their first-ever appearance in the section finals. This was the first time any Harker boys team has qualified for the section finals in any sport! Here’s how they got there:
After going 15-9 in league play in the regular season, the boys earned a first-round bye in the 2014 CCS Boys Basketball Division IV Championship. In the second round, the boys met Carmel at Harker and outplayed them for a 46-40 victory. Next, they packed up and headed down the winding, sylvan road to Santa Cruz to defeat Soquel 46-40 in a quarterfinal matchup at Kaiser Arena. That win catapulted them into the semifinals, where they returned to the Bay to face off against Seaside at Menlo School. There, the boys walked away with a sound victory, trumping Seaside 71- 61. That set up a finals game between Harker and Sacred Heart Prep. The event united the Harker community, and a generous donor stepped up to sponsor the admission fee for all students, faculty and faculty spouses. Fans poured in to watch Harker compete to bring home the title, but the Eagles dropped a heartbreaker, 48-37.
The boys went on to compete for the first time in the Northern California Playoffs in a single elimination tournament at St. Patrick/St. Vincent of Vallejo, where they finished their season with a 60-42 loss.
Earlier in the year, for only the third time in 10 years, the boys varsity basketball team defeated rival Sacred Heart on the road. The boys’ dramatic upset earned a full report in the San Jose Mercury News, where they were written up as exciting spoilers to Sacred Heart’s title hopes. Huck Vaughan, grade 12, was commended for his “huge game,” and Coach Keller was quoted.
The girls, meanwhile, went all the way to the third round of the CCS tournament, losing a heartbreaker by three points to Mercy Burlingame. After the regular season ended, the girls met Oceana at Harker for a first round matchup for the right to continue on in the tournament. The girls crushed Oceana 58-49, sending them to Archbishop Riordan for a second-round matchup against Immaculate Conception Academy. They walked away again with a large victory, trouncing Immaculate Conception 52-44. From there, it was on to the third round, where the girls lost 30- 27 to Mercy Burlingame at College of San Mateo.
Nithya Vemireddy, grade 12, led the girls with 12.4 points per game and 323 total points. Jordan Thompson, grade 9, was second in both categories with an even 11.0 points per game and 287 points on the year, and Regina Chen, grade 12, finished third with 7.6 points per game and 182 total points. Chen also led the team with 4.8 assists per game.
For the boys, Wei Wei Buchsteiner, grade 12, led the team with 270 total points, giving him an even 10 per game, while Eric Holt, grade 11, who was limited to just 18 games this season, led the team with 12.1 points and 9.2 rebounds per game, meaning that he nearly averaged a doubledouble per game.
Wrestling
It was another great year for Harker wrestling. Davis Howard became only the third freshman in Harker’s history to qualify for the CCS tournament, after he and senior Darian Edvalson each competed in the league championships and finished sixth in their respective weight classes, earning them places in the tournament. Danny Reidenbach, grade 9, placed fourth in the junior varsity championships.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2014 Harker Quarterly.
The late winter sports season is coming to an end. Congratulations to all the boys soccer, girls basketball and wrestling teams for a great season!
We had a near league championship, lost by just one point (grade 6-7 girls basketball). Read on for details!
Varsity A girls basketball, coached by Allison Burzio and Chrissy Chang, finished 1-7, eighth place in the WBAL. Team awards went to Tiffany Shou (MVP), Selin Sayiner (Eagle), and Megan Huynh (Coaches), all grade 8.
Varsity B girls basketball, coached by Dan Pringle and C.J. Cali, finished 7-1, second in the WBAL. Team awards went to Jennifer Hayashi, grade 7 (MVP); Prameela Kottapalli, grade 7 (Eagle); and Alexandra Janssen, grade 7 and Charlotte Blanc, grade 6 (Coaches).
Junior Varsity A girls basketball, coached by Gus Cordova and Therese Wunnenberg, finished 1-8, ninth place in the WBAL. Team awards went to Haley Arena (MVP), Annabelle Ju (Eagle), and Cassandra Ruedy (Coaches), all grade 6.
Varsity A boys soccer, coached by Brighid Wood, finished 4-2-2, third place in the WBAL. Team awards went to Nicolas Acero (MVP), Mason Menaker (Eagle), and Erik Tran (Coaches), all grade 8.
Varsity B boys soccer, coached by Matt Arensberg and Joe Newman, is currently 2-2-1 in the WBAL. Team awards went to Edwin Su (MVP), Krish Kapadia (Eagle), and Alex Rule and Rahul Goyal (Coaches), all grade 7.
Junior Varsity A boys soccer, coached by Cyrus Merrill and Sean Kamkar, is currently 0-6 in the WBAL. Team awards went to Andrew Cheplyansky (MVP), Asmit Kumar (Eagle), and Karthik Nukala (Coaches), all grade 6.
Wrestling is coached by Karriem Stinson and Jason Mendel. Team awards went to Anthony Contreras (MVP), grade 8; Kobe Howard (Eagle), grade 7, and Arjun Kilaru (Coaches), grade 7.
Along with wrestling, Harker has other great sports camps for boys and girls, including water polo, swimming, football, basketball, TRX training and our always popular soccer camp–see the photos for a view of last year’s camps! To register for summer camps, click here.
After a successful first year, Harker’s summer wrestling camp will have students in grades 4-12 taking to the mat once again to brush up on both beginning and advanced techniques. Among this year’s special guests is Anthony Robles, who won the 2010-11 NCAA championship in the 125-pound weight class despite being born with just one leg. He will be visiting the camp during its final two days.
The wrestling camp caters to a wide range of skill levels. Students will work on takedowns, reversals and other important skills. Students also will train on the TRX system, and work on managing weight, setting goals and being mentally prepared. In addition, students will have the opportunity to learn from college coaches and wrestlers who will visit the camp.
“One of the new things about camp this year is we have more coaches to help,” said camp director Karriem Stinson. “I went out and got some of the best coaches in [the Central Coast Section]. Two of them have been CCS honor coaches of the year and one has been named Mercury News coach of the year.”
Stinson is Harker’s middle school assistant athletic director and the middle and upper school wrestling coach. During his time at Harker, he has coached three members of the California national wrestling team and many other wrestlers who have gone on to placements in CCS.
Stinson will be joined by Shawn Henebry, a three-time CCS winner and former captain of the wrestling team at California State University, Fullerton, where he later was assistant coach. Henebry finished in first place in the 85kg category at the 2012 Veterans U.S. National Championships and his coaching successes include a CCS champion and several state qualifiers.
The camp will take place July 28-Aug. 1 from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. For more information on all the sports camps, please visit the Harker summer website.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2014 Harker Quarterly.
The late winter sports season is coming to an end. Congratulations to all the boys soccer and girls basketball for a great season!
We had two league champions this season (grade 5 girls basketball and grade 5 boys soccer) and a tournament champion (grade 5 girls basketball). Read on for details!
Junior Varsity B girls basketball, coached by Coli Simmons and Jon Cvitanich, finished 9-1 overall, 7-1 in league, co-champs of the WBAL and champions of the WBAL tournament! Team awards went to Courtni Thompson (MVP), Maria Vazhaeparambil (Eagle), and Anna Vazhaeparambil (Coaches), all grade 5.
Junior Varsity C girls basketball, coached by Michelle Hopkins, finished 2-3, fifth place in the WBAL. Team awards went to Brooklyn Cicero (MVP), Ashley Barth (Eagle) and Anishka Raina and Angela Jia (Coaches), all grade 4.
Intramural girls basketball is coached by Vanessa Rios, Miles Brown and Laura Wolfe. Team awards went to Advika Phadnis and Aditi Vinod (MVPs), Anvitha Tummala and Vidya Jeyendran (Eagle), and Arusha Patil and Suman Mohanty (Coaches), all grade 5.
Junior Varsity B boys soccer, coached by Jared Ramsey and Walid Fahmy, is currently 4-1, and should finish as co-champs of the WBAL! Team awards went to Ryan Tobin (MVP), Arjun Virmani (Eagle) and Srinath Somasundaram (Coaches), all grade 5.
Intramural boys soccer is coached by Jim McGovern and Scott Rudolph. Team awards went to Sasvath Ramachandran (Eagle), Dhruv Saoji and Aaditya Gulati (Coaches), all grade 4.
Harker linksmen have had a stellar week! Coach Ie-Chen Cheng provided this report:
In another heated battle of the unbeatens, Harker edged Sacred Heart Prep 191-194 to take sole possession of first place in the WBAL golf race. Both Shrish Dwivedi, grade 11, and sophomore Dakota McNealy, grade 10, shot two over par 37 to take a three stroke lead after completion of the first group. Sandip Nirmel and Ryan Vaughan, both grade 9, continue their strong season with 39 and 42 respectively, losing to their opponents by five, resulting in a two shot deficit with one group still on the course. Avi Khemani, grade 9, nearly missed a 25 foot birdie putt on the ninth hole, knocking it dead center, but with slightly too much speed, resulting in a lip out. With Harker’s best score of the day at one over par 36, the frosh sensation beat his opponent by five strokes to win a very exciting match for Harker. The win marks the best start in Harker golf history, and the first time any team has beaten both Menlo and SHP in the same season. The Eagles are atop the WBAL with a 7-0 record. The two teams meet again on Tuesday at San Jose Country Club.
Coach’s Corner: This match was won on the greens and a tribute to those practices where we putt until our backs ached. Our golfers made key putts while our opponents struggled within 5 feet. That was the difference maker. We are slowly learning to play smarter by understanding the risk reward of each shot. Dakota improved his play from yesterday by three strokes. His course management was evidenced by using an iron off the tee on the par 5 7th hole, knowing that going for the green in two is not feasible. So, he played it smart and made a tap in par. What differentiates this team from the previous years is our focus around the greens. With great wedge play, we put ourselves in positions to score even on an off day of ball striking.
Considering SHP was coming off its first tournament title at the Meadow Club where they shot a ridiculous 8 over as a team on a 18 hole course, and they were Norcal Finalists last year, this was a shocking defeat for them. Again, we played like savvy veterans with great poise and composure. Like the Menlo match, we’ve had different players come up big for us. Yesterday it was Avi and Dakota. The win displays our depth even with an off day from Shrish. (Well, an off day for Shrish is in reality just one bad shot mixed in with an unlucky lie). Please congratulate the boys on a remarkable week. But we’re not done yet. We’ve set our sights on bigger and better prizes.
Eagles golfers are off to an amazing start after a clash of the titans with undefeated Menlo, and Harker’s track and field squad sees more records broken. This is the week in sports:
Golf
The boys defeated Pinewood and King’s Academy, extending their unbeaten streak to start the season to 5-0, then faced off against undefeated Menlo and pulled out a 192-212 victory at Palo Alto Hills Country Club. Junior Shrish Dwivedi finished with an even par 35, earning his sixth consecutive medalist honors. Freshman Ryan Vaughan finished with a 37, including a near miss of a hole-in-one on the second hole. Freshmen Sandip Nirmel and Avi Khemani carded 39 and 41, respectively. Sophomore Dakota McNealy had an excellent day of chipping and putting to finish with a 40. The win marks the second time Harker has ever defeated Menlo, and the first since 2009. It is also Menlo’s fist loss in a league match in 16 straight appearances, dating back to 2012. Harker now stands in first place in the WBAL with a 6-0 record. Their next contest is against another undefeated team: Sacred Heart Prep.
Track and Field
Harker saw a number of records broken at the 30-team Garlic Invitational at Soquel High School. Freshman Winnie Li tied the school record in the high jump at 4’8″. Junior Julia Wang and senior Nithya Vemireddy both broke the school record in the shot put, with Wang beating the record by two feet and then Vemireddy by three to hold the record. Freshman Niki Iyer placed second in the mile run with a 5:08. The relay team of freshman Lucas Wang, sophomore Calvin Kocienda, sophomore Zeyad El-Arabaty and sophomore Mehul Khetrapal finished third in the 400m relay. Junior Sriv Irrinki posted the fastest 100m run of the year for any of Harker’s athletes with a 12.33. Ten other Eagles also had their best marks of the season.
Volleyball
The boys bounced back from a tough loss to Mountain View with a great run last week, defeating Kings Academy in 5 games last Thursday, then going 5-1 and reaching the finals at the 16-team Harbor Tournament, finally falling to Pacific Collegiate and bringing home the 2nd place trophy. The boys followed this up with two wins, including pulling out a victory over then-undefeated Lynbrook to bump their record up to 9-2.
Lacrosse
Junior Hannah Bollar, junior Allison Kiang, and senior Mary Liu scored in the girls’ loss to Burlingame.
Baseball
The boys recorded a season-high 10 hits in a loss to Pinewood, with freshman Nic Bean going 4-4 with a double, RBI and two runs at the plate and pitching 4 2/3 innings of two-run ball on the mound. Sophomore Dalton Forbes also had hits in all of his at-bats, going 2-2 with a double and a run scored. Freshman Varun Haltore drove in two runs.
Softball
The girls lost to Del Mar and Cupertino last week, despite hits from junior Brianna Liang and freshman Marti Sutton.
Swimming
The girls lost to Castilleja but defeated Notre Dame, Mercy-San Francisco, and Mercy-Burlingame in last week’s meet.
Tennis
The boys varsity team ultimately dropped a tough contest against Crystal Springs 4-3, while the JV team crushed the Gryphons 6-1.
St. Patrick’s Day was cause for celebration at the lower school. On the afternoon of March 17, students in grades 4-5 had some Irish fun during their monthly spirit assembly. Celebrating Irish-American culture, the annual event was sponsored by the Spirit/Service Club and held outdoors on the playground, blacktop and fields.
Homeroom teachers had previously encouraged the students to come dressed with as much green spirit as possible, with each classroom electing the student most passionate about St. Patrick’s Day to participate in a contest at the assembly. Students also were instructed to “search the usual places for hidden shamrocks before school and during morning recess.” The fourth and fifth graders had a blast hunting for shamrocks on the playground and in the hallways and lobbies of the gym building before turning them in to their homeroom teachers for additional spirit points.
After the assembly, the students continued to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by enthusiastically participating in a range of themed activities, including dancing the freeze jig, stealing the leprechaun’s gold, jump roping as leaping leprechauns, navigating a four-leaf clover obstacle course, playing a luck of the Irish bingo game and more.
A special lunchtime reception for students who participated in this year’s Siemens Competition and Intel Science Talent Search was held March 19 in the Nichols Hall rotunda. The event celebrated the hard work and dedication each of the students committed to their projects.
Science faculty also were in attendance as this year’s Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists, all seniors – Vikas Bhetanabhotla, Stephanie Chen, Christopher Fu, Anika Gupta, Saachi Jain, Sreyas Misra, Preethi Periyakoil, Rahul Sridhar, Vikram Sundar and Albert Zhao – received their certificates.
Students were treated to desserts and kind words from science department chair Anita Chetty. Shreyas Parthasarathy, grade 12, who entered both the Intel and Siemens competitions this year, said he enjoyed the process of doing research for his project. “I learned a whole bunch of stuff that I never thought I would learn,” he said, briefly discussing his project that dealt with mapping the Milky Way. “Astronomy sort of pulls from all these different disciplines.”
“I had a lot of fun doing my research,” said Periyakoil, an Intel semifinalist who said that the process was tough “but also very rewarding. It was nice to be able to share my work with others.”
This report submitted by Vandana Kadam, Harker math teacher. Kadam coached the state championship team and will coach them for the national competition. This is her fourth competition; in 2011, she led the California team to the national championship.
Harker’s team is the 2014 state MathCounts champion, a repeat of 2008 and 2011 victories for Harker.
Last Saturday, Harker’s MathCounts team was represented at the state MathCounts competition by Jimmy Lin, Rajiv Movva, Shaya Zarkesh, all grade 8, and Katherine Tian, grade 7. In addition to the Harker team members, Jerry Chen, grade 8, went in as an independent competitor. Everyone performed exceptionally well.
Movva placed second among the top 10 individuals and will represent California in the national competition to be held May 8-10 in Orlando, Fla. Zarkesh placed 14th and Lin was ranked 23rd (just two points behind Zarkesh).
It was a tough competition, with Cupertino, Redwood and Miller schools also fielding extremely strong teams. Harker beat defending state champion William Hopkins School from Fremont, and also passed champions Miller and Redwood to clinch the No. 1 spot. The point separation between the top four teams was small so it was a nail-biting finish for Harker, giving it the flavor of March Madness! Harker had the best performance of all the teams in the entire state.
The top four teams were all from the Santa Clara chapter, with three more teams from this chapter among the top 10 teams in the Northern California competition.
The top 175 students (34 teams, including all chapter champions, and 39 top independents) from 14 different chapters from Northern California participated in the competition at Stanford.
A similar number of students from 12 different chapters from Southern California participated in the same contest held on March 15 at University of California, Irvine. The top 10 students were recognized at each of these venues. Four top students from these 300-plus students (both venues) were chosen to be part of the California team to go to the national MathCounts competition in Orlando.
All four of these toppers came from Northern California and, as hard as it is to believe, three of these students are from our Santa Clara chapter. There was a tie for first place with four students scoring 43 out of 46 points. (Rankings were then determined based on which problems they had missed, giving more weight to harder problems.) Movva was one of the students who scored 43. Joining Movva in representing California at the national competition will be students from Cupertino Middle School, Raymond J. Fisher Middle School in Los Gatos and Harvest Park Middle School in Pleasanton.
Saturday’s success is highly encouraging. Most of these students have been with the MathCounts program for two years and the title of California state champions is well deserved for each one of them. This is an incredible achievement for the students and for the school.
Please congratulate them on their accomplishment, and thank you all for your support.
A number of Harker students qualified for the National Speech & Debate Tournament at a qualifying event held at Bellarmine College Preparatory this past weekend. The national tournament, sponsored by the National Speech & Debate Association, will take place in Kansas in June.
In Public Forum debate, Jithin Vellian, grade 12, and Nikhil Kishore, grade 11, both qualified. Rohith Kuditipudi and Madhu Nori, both grade 11, qualified in International Extemporaneous Speaking and Original Oratory, respectively. Kenny Zhang, grade 12, automatically qualified for a spot at the national tournament because of a second-place finish at last year’s tournament.
To qualify for the national tournament, most students must place in the top three at a tournament in their district. “The students get one weekend to give their best against some of the toughest opponents in the country, as the California Coast district is one of the top-performing districts in the nation at the national tournament,” said upper school debate teacher Carol Green. According to Green, students who compete every year for a spot at the national tournament number in the tens of thousands.
Meilan Steimle, grade 9, has been awarded a silver medal in this year’s Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for her short story, “Colorblind.” As a national medalist, Steimle is now eligible to attend the national awards ceremony at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in June. Congratulations!
—
Earlier this month, 21 Harker upper school students received the news that they had been named regional winners in this year’s Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. These awards have recognized and rewarded the creativity and vision of American students since 1923, and are now widely regarded as among the most prestigious awards for creative teenagers. Past winners in this contest include legendary figures such as Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote and Joyce Carol Oates.
“Our writing program fosters close critical reading coupled with synthesis thinking,” said Marc Hufnagl, upper school English department chair. “There are many opportunities here that encourage creative inquiries into literature, but with an understanding of the qualities of written expression and a facility with the mechanics that renders articulate writing.”
Kacey Fang, grade 11, who received two Gold Key Awards, the highest regional honor, said the program has done much to help her develop her talents. “I’m so grateful for their encouragement and for the support they showed in reading the writing that I shared with them,” she said. “They’ve helped me realize more about myself and my writing, and I feel more open about sharing my work now.”
Essential to the upper school writing program’s success has been finding unconventional ways to bolster the creative faculties of its students. “We offer students the opportunity to express their insight and creativity in ways that transcend the analytic essay,” said Pauline Paskali, upper school English teacher. “Students take reflective nature walks, create poems, story boards, short stories, movies, collages, parodies, electronic art, etc., as means of interpreting and experiencing the world through language.”
Paskali added that a strong humanities education helps students enhance their outlook on the world by enabling them to view it from a wide range of perspectives. “To become innovators and creators, our students need to observe their surroundings with a fresh set of eyes,” she said.
Some students, such as senior Zina Jawadi, who earned an Honorable Mention in the Personal Essay/Memoir category, found inspiration for their work in personal experiences. Diagnosed with hearing loss at just 3 years old, Jawadi drew from the eight years she spent in speech therapy and the cultural perspectives on disability that she encountered growing up as a child of Arabic background. “In my essay, I narrate my experience with Khattiyya, which means “poor thing” in Arabic, and how Khattiyya has ironically motivated me to change society’s perceptions of people with disabilities,” she said. “Eradicating social perceptions of Khattiyya has since been one of my advocacy motives.”
Students also find that what they learn in the writing program has benefits in other academic disciplines. “Because of the writing skills I developed at Harker, I have been asked to write articles on behalf of the nonprofit organization I am involved with,” said Jawadi. “Additionally, the writing techniques I developed from Harker’s humanities program contributed to my success in public speaking.” Jawadi was national Original Oratory finalist in last year’s National Catholic Forensics League tournament.
Fang said that in addition to boosting her appreciation for literature, her English classes also have helped her “analyze, think creatively and discuss constructively with peers, all skills that I think aid me in other classes and that I hope will last me a long ways into the future.”
Harker students won a total of seven Gold Key awards in this year’s contest. Fang won two; Connie Li, grade 12, earned one in the Poetry category; Albert Chu, grade 12, Apoorva Rangan, grade 11, and Meilan Steimle, grade 9, each won one in the Short Story category; and Suzy Lou, grade 11, won one in the Persuasive Writing category. All regional Gold Key winners are eligible for national-level awards.
Silver Keys in Poetry went to Li, Sahana Narayanan, grade 10, and Menghua Wu, grade 11. Arden Hu and Maya Nandakumar, both grade 11, won Silver Keys in Personal Essay/Memoir. Vineet Kosaraju, grade 10, won two Silver Keys in the Journalism category, in which Rangan also won. Lou and Samyukta Yagati, grade 11, each won in Persuasive Writing. Steimle won Silver Keys in Short Story and Flash Fiction. Eric Cheung, grade 11, earned one in Science Fiction/Fantasy.
Honorable mentions went to Fang, Hu, Jawadi, Kosaraju, Nandakumar, Narayanan, Rangan, Steimle, senior Stephanie Chen and juniors Juhi Gupta, Allison Kiang, Cheryl Liu, Manthra Panchapakesan, Mariam Sulakian, Samyukta Yagati and Leo Yu.