Football It was an outstanding Homecoming night on Saturday, with varsity football defeating Santa Cruz 23-13 – in front of what some say was the largest crowd to witness a Harker football game on Davis Field. Freshman Demonte Aleem scored two touchdowns, while sophomore Anthony Contreras scored from a pass by classmate Nate Kelly. Senior Oisin Coveney was perfect on extra points as well. The team is now an impressive 4-1 as it travels to Oakland Saturday to face Emery High School in its second league match of the season.
Volleyball Your 15th ranked girls varsity volleyball team had an outstanding victory last week at Menlo 32-30, 25-20 and 25-23 to take sole possession of first place in league. Junior Rachel Cheng led defensively with 37 digs and senior Shannon Richardson had 18 kills. The girls travel to Notre Dame today at 5:45 p.m. and host Mercy Thursday at 5:45 p.m. Come cheer on your high-flying Eagles!!
Tennis The girls varsity tennis team soundly defeated Pinewood and Crystal Springs last week, and had a solid showing in a losing effort to Bishop O’Dowd at the prestigious Battle of the Bay Tournament. The girls bounced back with a 5-2 victory over Tamalpais to improve to 4-1 overall. They have three matches this week, with a tough matchup against Sacred Heart Prep today at 4 p.m. at the Santa Clara Tennis Center. Come out and support the team!
Cross Country Varsity girls cross country placed second overall at their first league meet last week with junior Niki Iyer taking first place individually and senior Alex Dellar placing 12th. Key contributors were our four freshman stars: Anika Rajamani, Lilia Gonzales, Alycia Cary and Aneesha Kumar. The top three cross country boys, al seniors, made major improvements from a year ago. Connor O’Neill improved by 2:47, Jack Rothschild dropped 54 seconds and Lev Sepetov ran 1:21 faster than last year’s run at San Bruno Mountain. The teams compete Saturday at Crystal Springs.
Water Polo Girls water polo lost to Santa Clara last week but earned its second win of the season with a 6-4 victory over Wilcox. The boys team defeated Lynbrook and Santa Clara last week to improve to 5-4 overall. Both boys and girls host Milpitas today at the Singh Aquatic Center. The girls varsity team plays at 4:30 p.m., while the boys play at 6:45 p.m.
Golf Girls golf had victories over Sacred Heart Prep and Mercy last week to improve to 3-1 overall.
A blustery early autumn evening set the stage for Harker’s 2015 Homecoming celebration, and the football team turned it into a great night with a 23-13 hard-fought win. This year’s Homecoming saw people from across the Harker community gather at the upper school campus to cheer on the Harker Eagles football squad as it faced off against Santa Cruz at Davis Field. In addition to the game, Homecoming offered a chance for Harker community members – be they students, parents, alumni, faculty or staff – to enjoy a fun evening of socializing and reminiscing.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the whole community to get together,” said Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs. “From preschool to the high school, everyone can come together as one community, to support our students in the game, but also in the various ways that they’re participating, whether it’s musically or through cheer or selling pizza.”
Attendees began arriving in droves as early as two hours before the 7 p.m. kickoff, enjoying a variety of foods from Ms. Carley’s Café and a delicious array prepared by the Harker kitchens – the staff had been at work since 7 a.m. preparing for the big event – alongside pizza and candy sold by Harker students. Lower, middle and upper school campuses had tables filled with confections and chips for parents and students to snack on, while Harker Alumni had a special area with white linen and great food, which enjoyed a steady stream of visitors. “It’s really exciting, and everyone’s having fun,” said Elizabeth Yang, grade 9, who was selling candy to raise funds for her class.
Prior to the game, the early arrivals enjoyed special performances by Harker’s junior cheerleaders and the time-honored Eaglets Fly-By. Just before the game, several of Harker’s vocal groups, directed by lower school performing arts teacher Carena Montany, sang “The Harker School Song” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The Harker School Orchestra supplied its usual accompaniment and the varsity cheerleaders maintained a steady blast of cheerful encouragement from the sidelines.
The first half of the game was hotly contested, with Santa Cruz reaching the endzone early, followed by a strong answer from Harker, which scored a safety and a touchdown to take a 9-6 lead at halftime.
During the halftime, Harker’s cheer squad and varsity dancers gave energetic, crowd-pleasing performances. Shortly after, this year’s homecoming court took the field, with seniors Edward Sheu and Stephanie Huang named the 2015 Homecoming King and Queen.
In the second half, both teams pushed hard. Santa Cruz took back the lead to make it 13-9. Push literally came to shove in the fourth quarter as each team pushed their luck on fourth-down situations trying to hang on to the ball to get a drive going. Finally, with 10:40 remaining in the game, Harker marched up the field and added 7 to make it 16-13. For the next eight minutes the crowd was on the edge of their seats knowing if Santa Cruz found the right gap the score would reverse, again.
Indeed, the ball changed hands several times, but neither team was able to capitalize until very late in the fourth quarter when Harker put paid to the match with a great run to make it 23-13 with less than two minutes left. Harker D was fired up and bottled up Santa Cruz, nailing the lid on the win. Great night out with a big, lively crowd! Check Facebook and Instagram for photos and video clips from the game, and search on #harkerhomecoming in both sites for a gallery of photos and clips. (Feel free to hashtag your own homecoming photos to add to the gallery!) This story will be updated with a photo gallery as well on Monday. Huge congrats to the football team including coaching, training and other support staff for a great, well-fought game! Go Eagles!
Children’s book author Shalini Singh Anand and her beloved “Lee the Bee” mascot regularly do book readings at schools throughout California. A recent visit to Harker Preschool was marked by the added pleasure of wearing two hats: one as a guest speaker, the other as a parent.
Singh Anand is the author of the recently released “Lee the Bee: Turn off that TV!” and a previously published book called “Potter the Otter: A Tale About Water.” Her son, Vishal Anand, a 3-year-old student at Harker Preschool, was excited to have his mom lead a book reading, signing and giveaway in the school’s music and movement room.
“Shalini’s first book is already a favorite with our students. She read to them from her newest book and gave a signed copy of it to every preschooler!” recalled Andrea Hart, director of Harker Preschool.
“Lee the Bee” is described as a book about a little bee who learns that outdoor play is the best way to stay healthy and strong all day long. After finishing her reading at the preschool, Singh Anand handed out “Lee the Bee” stickers and gave signed books to the students and teachers in attendance.
“I create my stories for many reasons: to teach healthy lessons, which I hope last because they are being presented in a fun way; to instill a love of reading; and my own selfish reason is just to watch children listen intently and see their cute expressions as I read to them,” said Singh Anand, noting that she created her first book for First 5 Santa Clara County, an agency she worked for two years ago that funds educational programs for children’s first five years of life.
When she created her latest book last spring, she worked with pediatricians at Kaiser Permanente to ensure the health messaging was accurate. Kaiser later endorsed the book and over 50,000 copies are now in circulation throughout hospitals, schools and children’s agencies, all of which have the same goal: to eliminate childhood obesity. She said she hopes to reach as many children possible, teaching them the importance of physical activity and early literacy, “serious topics all while having fun!”
A former on-air news reporter and print journalist for over 10 years, Singh Anand has worked for local stations including Fox and NBC News, as well as the International Channel in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. She left the field of journalism a few years ago, but said she will always have a place for it in her heart.
Nowadays, she shared, motherhood is her most challenging job. Raising her son and finding the time to write, she added, would be impossible without the help of her parents, who watch her son after preschool while she and her husband are working.
“Vishal is absolutely in love with Harker Preschool. Every morning, in a mixture of skipping and bouncing, he makes his way toward Mr. Joe, who welcomes Vishal with a big smile and high-fives! Vishal continues his skipping and bouncing as he enters Clover Cottage, where he bursts into play with his school friends and his teachers. Both my husband and I are so pleased to know that his first school experience is a positive one,” she enthused, explaining why she felt so compelled to give back to Harker Preschool by coming out to do the reading.
This past Sunday, Harker senior and avid dancer Sharanya Balaji performed for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who appeared at the SAP Center in San Jose. Balaji, who was previously featured in the San Jose Mercury News for organizing a benefit dance show for arts programs at schools, performed in one of three dance acts at the event. “The act that I was a part of was a medley of Indian classical dance forms,” Balaji said. “We were the representatives for Bharatnatyam.”
Prime Minister Modi’s appearance at the SAP Center was the last stop on a two-day tour of Silicon Valley that included meetings with the leaders of valley companies such as Facebook, Google and Apple. Balaji learned of the opportunity from her dance teacher. “We were chosen as the sole representatives for our dance style,” she said. Although the Mercury News piece was not a factor in her group being chosen, she said, “it did definitely get me more noticed during rehearsals.” Balaji is writing an article for Harker Aquila, a student publication and we will provide the link as soon as that story is ready!
Football Varsity football defeated Gunn High School 56-0 under the lights of Davis Field Friday to improve to 3-1 overall. Highlights included three touchdowns from Angel Cervantes, grade 10; two from Demonte Aleem, grade 9; one from Nate Kelly, grade 10; and a receiving touchdown by Anthony Contreras, grade 10. Contreras also led defensively with seven tackles. Nikhil Ramgiri and Miles DeWitt, both grade 12, each had interceptions, and kicker Oisin Coveney, grade 12, was a perfect 8-for-8 on extra points. Come on out Saturday night for Homecoming vs. Santa Cruz!
Cross Country Niki Iyer, grade 11, placed ninth out of 215 runners in the elite 5K varsity girls race at Stanford on Saturday. She posted the third-fastest time of all Central Coast Section athletes among the 1,200 female runners from throughout the Western United States.
Anika Rajamani and Lilia Gonzales, both grade 9, led the frosh-soph girls team to a fifth-place team finish at the Ram Invitational at Westmoor. This is the second fifth-place team finish for these young runners in two weeks. Alycia Cary and Aneesha Kumar, both grade 9, and Akshaya Vemuri, grade 10, rounded out the scoring team.
Peter Connors, grade 10, ran the fastest Eagle time of the day in the sophomore boys race, placing 19th out of 240 runners. He improved by one and a half minutes from his race there a year ago. Connor O’Neill and Jack Rothschild, both grade 12, placed 56th and 59th in the varsity boys run, O’Neill with a two-minute improvement over last year’s race.
Volleyball Girls volleyball continues to play the best teams in our section in close matches. Last week the girls fought hard in losses to very strong Presentation and Valley Christian teams in four games to drop to 5-6 overall.
Water Polo Boys water polo lost to Homestead last week 13-10 but responded with a 15-6 victory over Cupertino Thursday to improve to 3-4 overall.
The girls water polo team earned its first victory of the season with a 7-6 win over Salinas at the Watsonville Tournament Saturday. Highlights included goalie Helena Dworak, grade 12, scoring her first half-court goal, and Abby Wisdom and Samantha Yanovsky, both grade 9, scoring their first high school goals.
Golf Girls golf lost by just three strokes to Menlo last week but rebounded the next day with a 23-stroke victory over Notre Dame-San Jose. The team has been led by Katherine Zhu, grade 10, Daphne Liang, grade 12, and Ashley Zhong, grade 12.
Over the summer, grade 4 student Nathan Liu’s basketball team, Spartans, won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) South Regional Championship. More than 100 teams competed at the event, held in Santa Cruz. The Spartans went on to win the 2015 AAU Summer Tournament Champion in San Carlos. Prior to that, Liu was voted by his National Junior Basketball League (NJB) teammates and coaches to be the NJB West San Jose All-Star candidate.
“Winning or losing is not the key point, the most important is to stay in the game and keep playing!” said Liu.
Each year, as part of a long-running reciprocal exchange program, Harker’s global education department hosts a visiting teacher from the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) in Shanghai.
This year, from Sept.12-25, students and faculty warmly welcomed Ye Wang (who goes by the English nickname Athena). Wang is an upper school biology teacher at WFLMS, Harker’s sister school in China.
She said she greatly enjoyed her very first visit to the United States, where she spent time observing and teaching science classes at Harker’s lower, middle and upper schools.
“Athena was thrilled by all the science labs she visited and the incredible conversations with students she had,” reported Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education.
Wang shared that she was most impressed by all the “nice people” she met. “Teachers were kind, nice, patient and helpful. Students were polite, diligent and creative,” she recalled.
Wang noted many similarities between the way Harker and WFLMS teach science – from the text-based content to the basic lab experiments. However, she added, what set Harker apart were the added research classes, field trips, and opportunities to learn from the experiences of area universities and professors.
“They all provide unlimited opportunities for the students to discover, investigate and research based on books … and also beyond books,” she explained.
Established in 1996, WFLMS is located in the southwest part of the Xuhui District in Shanghai, an area regarded as an important educational location. For many years, Harker has had both a student and teacher exchange program with WFLMS as part of its ongoing effort to build progressive academic and cultural relationships that prepare students to become global citizens.
“I appreciated everything, everyone I met. I hope our sister school program and friendship can last forever!” enthused Wang.
In June, grade 11 students Riya Chandra, Alex Mo, Eddie Shiang and Haley Tran attended the Hugh O’Brian Youth (HOBY) Leadership Seminar. Each year, rising high school juniors are nominated by their schools to represent their classes. These representatives then meet at HOBY events to build leadership skills through various activities and lectures. “The environment is inspiring, the people are brilliant and the experience is life changing,” said Mo. Also at the event was Mary Najibi, grade 12, who was volunteering at the event as a junior crew member after attending last year.
Conference activities included bonding cheers, games, talks by motivational speakers and idea sharing among attendees. “One that stuck out to me was when we were challenged as a group to build a society based on the materials they gave us,” Chandra said. “The point of the game was to demonstrate the hardships of some societies with racism and other forms of obstacles.”
The experience made a lasting impression on the students, who in addition to bolstering their leadership abilities, forged new friendships. “I made tons of friends and we even still keep in touch through social media. It’s amazing that just in three days, I formed such amazing friendships!” Chandra exclaimed.
“In the few days that I got to meet these students, I can honestly say that they have changed my life,” Mo said.
Students were all over the place, checking lights, testing sound, practicing bows and curtsies, making last-second adjustments to their pitch and phrasing. It was an April afternoon and the cast and crew of the upper school 2015 spring musical “Into the Woods” were moving restlessly about Blackford Theater. In just over an hour, they would finally play to an audience after months of preparation. Yet this was not so much the end of their effort as the beginning of another, as in a couple months they would be in the thick of the world’s largest arts festival. (continued)
The Harker girls golf team placed sixth in a stacked field at the Helen Lengfeld Tournament, finishing ahead of Central Coast Section powerhouses Gunn, Palo Alto, Mitty, Presentation and Menlo. The Eagles were paced by sophomore Katherine Zhu’s 1-under-par 70; she tied for first place with one eagle and four birdies. Ashley Zhong, grade 12, contributed with a solid round of 80 and classmate Daphne Liang with an 89. The lady linksters open league with a highly anticipated match against defending co-champion Menlo today at Menlo Country Club, followed by Notre Dame tomorrow.
Varsity football earned its second victory of the season with a 40-6 league win over California School of the Deaf. Demonte Aleem, grade 9, had two touchdowns rushing and one on reception while racking up 117 yards running on seven attempts. Johnathon Keller, grade 12, had two touchdowns and Anthony Contreras, grade 10, added another. Quarterback Nate Kelly, grade 10, threw for 118 yards while Miles DeWitt, grade 12, led defensively with five tackles. Support the team under the lights of Davis Field this Friday night vs. Gunn High School at 7 p.m.!
Varsity and JV girls volleyball defeated Westmont High School last week in straight games. Support the team this week as it continues to take on the top teams in CCS. Presentation visits Blackford tomorrow, while another ranked team, Valley Christian, visits Thursday as the girls try to improve on their 5-4 record. JV plays at 4 p.m. and varsity plays at 5:30 p.m. Freshman girls had two victories last week to improve to 2-1 overall.
Boys water polo lost a close game Thursday at Saratoga High 11-10 and the girls squad lost at Monta Vista. Support the teams tomorrow against Homestead at the Singh Aquatic Center starting at 4:30 p.m.
Girls tennis opens the season tomorrow against Notre Dame-Belmont at the Santa Clara Tennis Center at 4 p.m. Wish them well!
Cross Country competes Saturday at the Westmoor Ram Invitational while Niki Iyer, grade 11, races at the Stanford Invitational. GO EAGLES!!