Despite a season cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, four middle school robotics teams had a highly successful year in the VEX Robotics Competition. All four qualified for the California State Championships, which were scheduled for earlier this month before being canceled.
Eighth graders Zachary Blue, Sriram Bhimaraju and Jordan Labio were two-time tournament winners and twice won robot skills challenges, in which the team ranked in the top 20 worldwide. The team also received a Think Award for the quality of its robot’s programming.
In their first year of competition, Angela Liu and Kaitlyn Su, both grade 7, won a pair of tournaments as well as a robot skills challenge and were finalists and semifinalists multiple times. Additionally, the team placed first in a VEX Silicon Valley Middle School League event.
Eighth graders Ramit Goyal, Joe Li and Nathan Liu were winners at one high school tournament and twice reached the semifinals in other events. Their robot’s user interface earned them an Innovate Award.
Ella Yee and Julie Shi, both grade 8, also competed for the first time this year, winning one tournament and reaching the quarterfinals in two other events.
Many upper school teachers are incorporating a variety of methods to manage the amount of screen time their students are having each day due to the shift to remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With students both attending classes and doing homework on laptops and other devices, educators are concerned about the amount of time students are spending in front of screens. “I am alarmed at the extent of screen time and lack of physical movement,” said upper school chemistry teacher Smriti Koodanjeri, who has been going on short walks with her daughter, Anya.
Sharing Koodanjeri’s concerns, business and entrepreneurship teacher Michael Acheatel included 15 minutes of light exercise into his Zoom classes. “I am also keeping my screen time-based assignments as light as possible,” he said. He’s also worked with business & entrepreneurship teacher Juston Glass and athletics coach Loren Powers to organize online exercise periods, to which all students are invited. Upper school history teacher Carol Green suggested including slides in presentations that remind students to take stretch breaks. Last week, she and fellow history teacher Julie Wheeler “unintentionally added a lot of movement to our class” by giving students the option to submit their assignment as a video made on the video sharing service TikTok. “The TikTok format gets the students moving!” Green said.
“Honestly, my biggest suggestion would be to cut down the amount of material we are trying to cover,” said upper school English teacher Tia Barth. ” I’m trying to give only about 80 minutes of work with class time and homework combined. Everything we teach and do is important, but we’re going to have to prioritize and scale back to make this approach sustainable.”
While understanding teachers’ concerns, upper school LID director Diane Main cautioned that screen time shouldn’t be altogether avoided. “Are they passive consumers of content, or are they interacting and creating? The more we can have them doing the latter, and for shorter stretches rather than an hour or more at a time, the better it is likely to be for them,” she said.
This report was submitted by lower and middle school athletic director Theresa “Smitty” Smith.
Here are the results from our early winter and late winter sports seasons at the lower and middle schools.
Early Winter – Boys Basketball and Girls Soccer
VA (grade 7-8) Boys Basketball
The Varsity A team, coached by Richard Amarillas, finished in a three-way tie for second place in the WBAL with a record of 3-3 and went 4-5 overall. The team also took second place in the gold division of the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Zachary Blue and Om Tandon, both grade 8 (co-MVPs), Brian Xiao, grade 8 (Eagle), and Kyle Leung, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB (grade 7-8) Boys Basketball
The Varsity B team, coached by Tim Hopkins, finished in first place in the WBAL with an 8-0 record and went 10-0 overall. The team also took first place in the gold division of the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Bowen Xia and Rahul Yalla, both grade 7 (co-MVPs), Vyom Vidyarthi, grade 7 (Eagle), and Gary Jin, grade 7 (Coaches).
VB2 (grade 7-8) Boys Basketball
The Varsity B2 team, coached by Randy LeGris, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a 2-5 record. Team awards went to Reza Jalil, grade 8 (MVP), Rayan Arya, grade 7 (Eagle), and Leo Sobczyn and Nikhil Chadha, both grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, finished in second place in the WBAL with a 5-1 record and an overall record of 7-2. The team also finished in second place in the gold division of the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Brennan Williams (MVP), Topaz Lee (Eagle) and Rishaan Thoppay (Coaches).
JVB6 (grade 6) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity B6 team, coached by Raul Rios, finished in third place in the WBAL with a record. Team awards went to Ethan Leelanivas (MVP), Alejandro Cheline (Eagle) and Ritik Raman (Coaches).
MS Intramural Boys Basketball
Team awards went to Daniel Schwartz, grade 7 (MVP), Krish Goenka, grade 6 (Eagle) and Daniel Miao, grade 6 (Coaches). The team was coached by Adam Albers and Ron Paranada.
JVB1 (grade 5) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity B1 team, coached by Karriem Stinson, finished in a two-way tie for second place in the WBAL with a 6-1 record, and an overall record of 8-2. The team then took first place in the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Kai Nishimura (MVP), Brandon Labio (Eagle) and Raj Akunuri (Coaches).
JVB2 (grade 5) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity B2 team, coached by Spring Wang, finished in sixth place in the WBAL with a 3-4 record. Team awards went to Benjamin Leafstrand (MVP), Zack Weng (Eagle) and Yash Belani (Coaches).
JVC (grade 4) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity C team, coached by Karriem Stinson, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 3-3 record. Team awards went to Jackson Yue and Luca Chan (Eagle) and Reid Bardin (Coaches).
LS Intramural Boys Basketball
Team awards went to Vidwat Shekar, grade 4 (MVP), Jaden Cao, grade 4, and Ian Lee, grade 5 (Eagle), and Avi Gupta, grade 4, and Shamik Khowala, grade 5 (Coaches). The team was coached by Tobias Wade and Walid Fahmy.
VA (grade 7-8) Girls Soccer
The Varsity A team, coached by Brighid Wood, Hannah Grannis, Dini Wong and Morgan Smith, finished in sixth place in the WBAL with a record of 1-5. Team awards went to Kate Grannis, grade 8 (MVP), Claire Anderson, grade 7, and Layla McClure, grade 7 (Eagle), and Margaret Cartee, grade 8 (Coaches).
JVB (grade 5) Girls Soccer
The Junior Varsity B team, coached by Colleen Campbell and Brittney Moseley, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 5-1. Team awards went to Ava Zarkesh and Chelsea Xie (Eagle) and Heather Wang (Coaches).
LS Intramural Girls Soccer
Team awards went to Maya Horan, grade 4 (MVP), Sofiah Jalil, grade 4 (Eagle), and Sasha Gupta, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Colleen Campbell and Brittney Moseley.
Late Winter – Girls Basketball and Boys Soccer
VA (grade 7-8) Girls Basketball
The Varsity A team, coached by Richard Amarillas, finished in second place in the WBAL with a 7-1 record, and finished 8-1 overall. They were to play in the gold division championship game of the WBAL tournament prior to the season being suspended. Team awards went to Anjali Yella, grade 8 (MVP), Isabella Lo, grade 7 (Eagle) and Kate Grannis, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB Girls Basketball
The Varsity B team, coached by Tim Hopkins, finished in first place in the WBAL with an 8-0 record, and finished 9-0 overall. They were to play in the gold division championship game of the WBAL tournament prior to the season being suspended. Team awards went to Alicia Yan, grade 6 (MVP), Claire Yu, grade 6 (Eagle) and Ria Kohli, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Girls Basketball
The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, finished undefeated in third place in the WBAL with a 5-2 record and finished 5-3 overall. Team awards went to Iris Wang (MVP), Kimaya Mehta (Eagle) and Kira Bardin (Coaches).
MS Intramural Girls Basketball
Team awards went to Shreya Vemulapalli, grade 6 (MVP), AJ Hacigumus, grade 6 (Eagle), and Ella Guo, grade 6 (Coaches). The team was coached by Raul Rios, Adam Albers and Rob Moore.
JVB (grade 5) Girls Basketball
The Junior Varsity B team, coached by Ellie Pereira and Joycie Kaliangara, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 4-3 overall record. Team awards went to Finley Ho (MVP), Ava Zarkesh (Eagle) and Chelsea Xie and Jessica Chen (Coaches).
JVC (grade 4) Girls Basketball
The Junior Varsity C team, coached by Spring Wang and Emily Pereira, finished in first place in the WBAL with a 5-0 record. Team awards went to Jillian Chen (MVP), Sophie McGrath (Eagle) and Maya Horan (Coaches).
LS Intramural Girls Basketball
Team awards went to Sasha Gupta, grade 4 (Eagle) and Julie Chen, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Tobias Wade.
VA (grade 8) Boys Soccer
The Varsity A team, coached by Brighid Wood, Hannah Grannis and Michael Pflaging, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a record of 0-8. Team awards went to Alex Guo (MVP), Ryan Barth (Eagle) and Chase White (Coaches).
VB (grade 7) Boys Soccer
The Varsity B team, coached by Brighid Wood, Morgan Smith and Ron Paranada, finished in third place in the WBAL with a league record of 2-2-1, and an overall record of 4-2. Team awards went to Ruhan Sahasi (MVP), Vyom Vidyarthi (Eagle), and Bowen Xia and Aarav Borthakur (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Boys Soccer
The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Brighid Wood and Dini Wong, finished in third place in the WBAL with a record of 3-5. Team awards went to Stanley Chen (MVP), Cyrus Ghane (Eagle) and Krish Nachnani (Coaches).
JVB (grade 5) Boys Soccer
The Junior Varsity B team, coached by Colleen Campbell and Oscar Flores, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 3-2-1. Team awards went to Vladimir Shchegrov (MVP), Ayden Grover (Eagle) and Rohan Goyal and Mason Brooks (Coaches).
LS Intramural Boys Soccer
Team awards went to Teodor Arnaudov, grade 4, Shridhar Chaware, grade 4, and Sudhith Gondipalli, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Karriem Stinson and Dominic Flocchini.
Congratulations to all our athletes and coaches for a great winter season!
Harker eighth graders Anish Jain, Jordan Labio, Kyle Leung and Vardaan Ghai received an honorable mention in the Toshiba/National Science Teaching Association ExploraVision contest, one of the world’s largest student science competitions. Honorable mentions are given to the top 10 percent of submissions, of which there are about 5,000 every year. The students developed their project, titled “Nanosense: Eliminating Food Allergies Using IgE/Th1/Th2 Sensors and Nanotechnology,” with the help of middle school science teacher Kathy Peng. This year’s competition tasked students with examining the technology of today to envision how it might evolve over the next 20 years.
It was an historic winter season for the Eagles and it showed in the announcement of the WBAL all-league teams.
Boys Basketball
The boys basketball team made it to the CCS D4 playoffs, winning its opening round game before falling in the second round. Jack Connors, grade 12, finished his Harker career with a second team honor.
Girls Basketball
The girls basketball team earned a 9 seed in the CCS D4 playoffs, but fell in its opening round game. Maria Vazhaeparambil, grade 11, dominated on the court and earned a first team honor; Alexa Lowe, grade 10, took home a second team award; and Cindy Su, grade 10, earned an honorable mention.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team won the first CCS title in program history and just the third team title in Harker history. In addition, it also made it all the way to the NorCal championship. Andy Cheplyansky, grade 12, was named league midfielder of the year; Sasvath Ramachandran and Ishaan Mantripragada, both grade 10, earned first team honors; Ryan Tobin, grade 11, and Arthur Kajiyama, grade 10, were named to the second team; and Darshan Chahal and Asmit Kumar, both grade 12, earned honorable mentions.
Girls Soccer
The girls soccer team won its first league title since 2014 and finished the season with a 13-2-3 record, but narrowly missed out on the CCS playoffs. Megha Salvi, grade 10, led the way as she was named league midfielder of the year; Amla Rashingkar, grade 12, and Emma Boyce, Sarah Baicher and Aria Wong, all grade 11, were named to the first team; Ashley Barth and Kalyn Su, both grade 10, and Lexi Wong, grade 9, each took home second team honors; and Kate and Sarah Leafstrand, both grade 10, earned honorable mentions.
The ongoing school closure, which began last week as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has dramatically changed the day-to-day lives of Harker students and faculty, but the community is still finding ways to continue both instruction and socializing by switching to platforms such as Zoom. Yesterday, the advisory of Office of Communication Director Pam Dickinson and Performing Arts Chair Laura Lang-Ree met via Zoom, and The Harker School Jazz Band decided to try taking its practice online. Upper School Admission Director Jennifer Hargreaves’ advisory posed for a photo during its Zoom meeting, and juniors Nilisha Baid, Anoushka Buch, Ruya Ozveren and Sabrina Takemoto took the opportunity for an online hangout during today’s lunch.
Business and entrepreneurship teacher Juston Glass’ students studied demographics for a marketing project and did a case study on how to market Apple products to previous generations. “The teams had great ideas utilizing the marketing mix strategy, also known as the four P’s: product, place, price and promotion,” Glass said. “And we are enjoying being able to remote learn and collaborate despite the circumstances.” During some extra break time in upper school science teacher Chris Spenner’s class on research on methods, the students were treated to an impromptu jazz performance by sophomore saxophonist Aaron Tran. “It was a poignant moment of community and support in strange times,” said Spenner, who was understandably “too entranced by the performance” to capture it in a video.
Last week, the COVID-19 virus not only sent all students home from school, but also from all extracurricular activities including sports. As of now, the spring season is postponed, but information is changing rapidly and the season will be evaluated at a later time. Before school was shut down, your Eagles were able to get a few games in:
Boys Volleyball
Last week, the boys volleyball team defeated Leland 3-0 before falling to Monta Vista 0-3. The Eagles were 6-4 at week’s end.
Boys Golf
The boys golf team defeated Pinewood 192-217 last week with Bowen Yin, grade 11, earning medalist honors shooting a 35.
Boys Tennis
All games were canceled for the boys tennis team last week. The Eagles were 6-2 and undefeated in league at the time.
Track and Field
The track and field team had no scheduled meets last week.
Swim
The swim team had no scheduled meets last week.
Lacrosse
Last week, the lacrosse team played to an 8-8 tie against Castilleja before the season came to a halt with the Eagles holding an 0-2-1 record.
Softball
All games were canceled last week for the softball team. The Eagles have a 0-2 record.
Baseball
The boys baseball team went 1-1 last week, bringing its abridged season record to 4-2. In a 1-3 loss to Prospect, Levi Sutton, grade 11, had two hits, while Andrew Chavez, grade 11, drove in the only Eagle run. Then, in a 26-1 win over Jefferson, all 12 Eagles drove in at least one run, with Sutton leading the way with four RBIs.
“Cmd-Delete,” a short documentary created by juniors Jason Lin, Sara Yen and Amar Karoshi, was today named the grand prize winner of C-SPAN’s 2020 StudentCam contest. It also received the Fan Favorite award for receiving the most votes among the contest’s 12 finalists. The documentary, which explores the impact of technology on the electoral process, will air on C-SPAN throughout the day on April 21, starting at 6:50 a.m. EST. A cash prize of $5,000 also was awarded. Nearly 5,400 students submitted entries into this year’s contest, which invited students to produce short documentaries on national issues. Other topics covered this year included climate change, prison rights, health care and the separation of immigrant families.
A team of computer scientists including Anand Natarajan ’09 recently published a proof that has solved “a raft of open problems in computer science, physics and mathematics,” wrote Quanta Magazine’s Kevin Hartnett. Natarajan co-authored the proof with researchers at Caltech, the University of Toronto, the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Texas, Austin. The full article contains an in-depth explanation of how the proof was developed.
The boys soccer team’s season ended on Saturday after an historic postseason run. The week started with a 1-1 tie in the NorCal opening round to Galt High that ended in a 5-4 penalty kick win for the Eagles. The NorCal semifinal matchup with Ygnacio Valley also ended in a tie, this time 2-2, with Harker once again winning on PKs 4-3. The NorCal finals sent the Eagles to East Union High in Manteca where the boys were defeated 0-2. Congratulations on an amazing season!
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team defeated Sacred Heart Prep 5-2 last week before traveling to Clovis for the California Tennis Classic. The team competed in the top division for the first time and went 3-0 on the first day of competition, making the final four. The Eagles went 0-2 on the second day of matches, but played extremely well. This week, the boys host Menlo on Tuesday and Pinewood on Thursday.
Lacrosse
The lacrosse team dropped its only match of the week to Burlingame 4-16. This week, the Eagles host Castilleja on Tuesday and Sequoia on Thursday.
Boys Golf
The boys golf team opened the league season by defeating The King’s Academy 193-214. Bowen Yin, grade 11, earned medalist honors with a 2-over-par 37. Later in the week, the Eagles finished 16th out of 23 teams at the Livermore Cowboy Classic. This week, the Eagles take on Pinewood on Monday in their sole match.
Baseball
The baseball team went 1-1 last week to bring its season record to 3-1. In a 2-5 loss to Fremont, Bobby Wang, grade 10, and Max Lee, grade 12, each drove in a run. Later in the week, the Eagles defeated Woodside 7-3 with Mark Hu, grade 10, and Andrew Chavez, grade 11, each with two RBIs. This week, the Eagles travel to prospect on Tuesday and Jefferson on Thursday.
Softball
The softball team opened its season with two losses last week. In a 1-13 loss to Gunn, Natasha Yen, grade 11, led the way with two hits and an RBI. Later in the week, the Eagles fell to Monta Vista 5-15 with Emma Dionne, grade 11, knocking in two runs. This week, the girls host KIPP on Wednesday and ACE Charter on Friday.
Track and Field
The track and field team traveled to the Willow Glen Invitational this weekend and had some great results. The following students set personal records in their events:
Angela Gao, grade 10, 1,600 meters
Anna Weirich, grade 11, 3,200 meters
Jeremy Ko, grade 9, Akhilesh Chegu, grade 10, Eddie Sun, grade 9, Alan Jiang, grade 9, and Rosh Roy, grade 11, 400 meters
Andrew Chen, grade 10, long jump and triple jump
Along with some amazing personal records, the team also had a few runners who placed in their divisions:
Weirich took first in the 3,200 and now holds the second and third place school record in that event.
Armaan Thakker, grade 9, took third place in the 100-meter frosh/soph boys race and followed that with a second place finish in the 200-meter frosh/soph race.
Andrew Fu, grade 9, took first place in the frosh/soph long jump.
The Eagles will travel to St. Francis for the first league meet on March 19.
Swim
Harker swimmers competed at the Small School meet on Saturday and it was a day dominated by freshmen. The meet started with a bang as Kathy Xu, grade 9, earned her first CCS cut time in the 200 IM and a second place finish; Jasleen Hansra, grade 9, won the 50 backstroke; Vincent Zhang, grade 9, was second in the 50 butterfly, with fellow freshman Indigo Lee taking third. Nicholas Wei, grade 9, won the 50 breaststroke and Bora Koyuncuoglu, grade 9, was third. Andrew Chang, grade 11, won the 100 breaststroke. The swimmers will be back in the pool on March 19 as Harker hosts the first WBAL Jamboree of the year.
Boys Volleyball
Last week, the boys volleyball team dropped a league matchup with Mountain View 1-3 before defeating Saratoga 3-0. The Eagles have a busy week as they host Leland on Monday and Monta Vista on Wednesday, before traveling to Lynbrook on Friday.