Upper school members of the Japanese National Honor Society (JNHS) recently held a fundraiser, at which they sold takoyaki (a Japanese snack), candies and shaved ice, to raise money to help Tohoku earthquake survivors rebuild their lives. Students raised $223.98 in the sale, which was held after school in late February.
“The JNHS students worked really hard on the fundraiser during Japan Week. They practiced making takoyaki during a long lunch prior to the event in my classroom,” said Yumiko Aridomi, JNHS advisor and upper school Japanese language teacher.
Aridomi, who was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, recalled how the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami created both a humanitarian and economic crises in Japan, with over 300,000 refugees in the region.
In addition to the fundraiser, Aridomi reported that some students in her Japanese program participated in the Tohoku Update project to further support relief efforts. Called “Tohoku Update 2015, The Next Generation,” the program has been sponsored by the Japanese American Museum in San Jose for the past four years since disaster struck.
During the program, several groups of students from Tohoku paired with high school students from Harker, Los Gatos High School and the Wesley Church to work on projects to help bring awareness and tourism back to the Tohuku region. The event featured student presentations and an interactive Q&A session, with the Tohoku groups being included live via Skype.
The JNHS recognizes and encourages scholastic achievement and excellence in Japanese study by working with teachers and administrators to develop and maintain high standards of Japanese language education and by promoting cultural activities.
Over the weekend of March 14-15, the Willow Glen Thunder National Junior Basketball team, which features grade 6 students Hunter Hernandez, Courtni Thompson and Dylan Williams and is co-coached by Hunter’s father, Sam Hernandez, took home the NJB All-Net National Championship! The team was undefeated the entire weekend, using a fast-paced play style, rock-solid defense and perimeter shooting to finish with a 16-1 overall record on the season. The three girls also were part of the Harker JVB basketball team that earned the league championship a few weeks ago!
That same weekend, Freddy Hoch, grade 4, and Om Tandon and Justin Chao, both grade 3, who play for the NJB Saratoga D3 All-Star team, helped their squad win the Silicon Valley Championship. They will play in the All-Star championship tournament this weekend in Anaheim. Wish them luck!
Four Harker students were recently named national winners in this year’s Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, earning a total of five medals. Kaity Gee, grade 11, won a gold medal for her piece in the Flash Fiction category, titled “If I Have a Daughter.” Harker’s other gold-medal winner, Suzy Lou, grade 12, won in Poetry for “Searching for Strongly Regular Graphs.”
Andrew Rule, grade 10, won two silver medals for his short stories “Abbeyman Funerary and Post-Mortem Services” and “The Cellar-Keepers’ Tale.” Meilan Steimle, also grade 10, picked up a silver medal for “Differentiating Equations” in the Personal Essay/Memoir category.
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have brought attention to the work of young creative minds for nearly a century. Notable past recipients include Sylvia Plath, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote and Joyce Carol Oates. More than 300,000 submissions were reviewed for this year’s awards, for which the top 5-7 percent were considered for national recognition.
It was a busy week for Harker sports, as swim teams, a tennis team, a volleyball team, the softball team, the baseball team, the lacrosse team, a golf team, and the track and field squad all played games!
Swimming
The girls crushed Crystal Springs 112-44 and defeated Mercy-Burlingame 107-80 in last week’s opener. Junior Angela Huang qualified for CCS in the 50 Free with a time of 25.47, while freshman Vivian Wang qualified in the 100 Free (54.51) and 200 Free (1:59.21). The girls also qualified in the 200 IM relay with a time of 1:58.47 thanks to great swims by freshman Taylor Kohlmann, junior Grace Guan, Huang and Wang. For the boys, senior Aaron Huang qualified for CCS in his two individual events, the 100 Breast (1:01.53) and 200 IM (2:01.55).
Other highlights included senior Delaney Martin dropping more than 22 seconds from time in the 500 Free, sophomore Catherine Huang tying for second in the JV 50 Free with her all-time best of 36.94, and freshman Shikar Solanki swimming his personal best in the JV 100 Free with a time of 1:03.92. Our swimmers compete next at Sacred Heart Prep.
Track and Field
The track team posted many personal bests in the K-Bell Invitational last Saturday at Los Gatos. Freshman Anthony Contreras and senior Allen Huang each dropped their 100m times and continue to rank in the top 10 in the league. Contreras also won his 200m race by a whopping 20m. Sophomore Winnie Li and freshman Gloria Guo each ran seasonal bests in the 100m hurdles and the 800m, and Li added a personal best in the 100m. Sophomore Davis Dunaway posted his best-ever marks in the 65m hurdles and the triple jump, while junior Lev Sepetov ran a strong fifth in his 800m race, posting a season’s best of 2:20. The boys 400m relay team opened with a very fast 49.12 race, good enough for second place in their heat. The team participates in their first league meet this Wednesday at Bellarmine. Some of the group will also race in the St. Francis Invitational next Saturday.
Tennis
The boys team extended its undefeated streak to eight matches to start the season with victories over Pinewood and Priory last week. They’ll look to stretch that mark to 10 when they travel to Crystal Springs and Sacred Heart this week.
Volleyball
The boys won their season opener against Oak Grove in four games last week but lost a tough five-set match against ECP Friday in their league opener. Junior Kurt Schwartz had 16 kills in the win over Oak Grove. They’ll host Los Gatos on Wednesday.
Softball
Softball defeated Mercy-SF last week but fell to 3-2 overall after losses to strong King’s Academy and Alvarez teams. Freshman Kristin LeBlanc had two hits against Mercy and junior Marita Del Alto pitched very well throughout the week.
Baseball
Baseball lost to Mills twice last week to open league play, evening up their record at 3-3 overall. Junior Miles DeWitt went three for three on Thursday with two RBI’s and a triple. The team plays Westmoor and Lynbrook this week.
Golf
The boys are still undefeated in league after a 187-208 win over King’s Academy last week. They face league rival Menlo twice this week.
Lacrosse
The girls lacrosse team lost to Sacred Heart Cathedral Friday by the score of 12-7. They’ll travel to play Woodside on Wednesday, then return home to host Carlmont on Friday.
This past weekend, a team of five Harker students participated in the South/West Bay Area Regional Middle School Science Bowl, taking second place behind Miller Middle School in a final round that was decided by a mere six points. Team Harker – comprising grade 8 students Leon Lu, Akshay Ravoor, Kaushik Shivakumar, Katherine Tian and team captain Alexander Young – suffered only one loss in the early rounds, against Kennedy Middle School, and then defeated four other schools to reach the finals. Because Miller had not yet lost, they had to be defeated twice in the final round. “Harker beat Miller decisively in the final, scoring 108 to 50 points,” said middle school science teacher Vandana Kadam. “However, Miller still had one life and Harker had to go against them again and in this round Miller got an early lead of 54 points over Harker in the first half.” In the second half, Harker claimed a 66-18 lead, but a new rule that introduced a limit of 23 questions per round prevented Harker from moving any further.
“Although Harker came in second, the performance by the team members was a winning one!” Kadam exclaimed. “They did a commendable job in every round. It is not easy to sit through 11 rounds answering the hardest science questions you can find, ranging from Earth science to astronomy to life science to physical science to mathematics.”
Update April 14, 2015 Patrick Lin finished between 9th-12th, qualifying as an alternate!
March 11, 2015 Eight Harker students are among 169 qualifiers in the invitational round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad! That round will take place this Thursday, March 12 and the top performers will go on to represent the United States at the International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria in late July. Please congratulate Swapnil Garg, grade 9; David Zhu, grade 10; Emily Pan, grade 11; and Matthew Huang, Rahul Jayaraman, Patrick Lin, Sachin Peddada and Madelyn Wang, all grade 12. For more information: http://www.nacloweb.org/about.php. We’ll update this story as results come in!
Winter sports wrap up and spring sports gain traction!
Basketball
The boys crushed Del Mar High School 71-38 in a second-round game in front of a loud and supportive crowd at Blackford, thanks to senior Sriv Irrinki’s 20 points and senior Eric Holt’s 15 points – including a breakaway dunk! However, the boys dropped their CCS quarterfinal game 52-45 to No. 4 seed Pacific Grove at the Kaiser Arena in Santa Cruz on Saturday, despite 19 points by Holt and 12 by Irrinki. The team ends the season with a 16-10 overall record, a fourth-place league finish and a CCS Academic Championship.
The girls’ season also came to a close last week as they lost a first-round CCS game at Carmel High. The team finished in third place in league this year with a 12-12 overall record.
Wrestling
Sophomore Davis Howard represented Harker at the CCS wrestling tournament this past weekend, losing two matches against tough opponents.
Golf
The boys placed eighth out of 24 teams last Monday at Lone Tree Golf Course in Antioch. The team competes three days this week. On Wednesday, they tee off against rival Sacred Heart Prep.
Track and Field
The track and field season began Saturday in the rain at Christopher High School. The team toughed it out in the adverse weather, winning seven events and setting six stadium records, thanks to freshmen Grace Koonmen and Aadi Ghildiyal, sophomore Niki Iyer, and juniors Alex Dellar and Calvin Kocienda, and the mile-relay team of Koonman, Iyer, Dellar and sophomore Winnie Li.
Lacrosse
The girls lost to Burlingame last week. They will look to bounce back at Davis Field when they play their home opener against Gunn High School.
Baseball
The Eagles split their two games last week, including a 12-1 blowout victory over North Valley Baptist. They play an away game Friday.
Softball: The softball team starts its season this week.
Tennis: The team starts its season this week.
Volleyball: The boys begin their season next week.
Spring sports start this week, with baseball, boys golf and girls lacrosse kicking off the season! Winter sports are not quite over, though, as Harker has two teams moving on to the next stage of competition.
Basketball
Both the boys and girls teams are headed to the CCS Tournament!
The boys beat both Priory and Crystal Springs last week to earn the No. 5 seed and a first-round bye. The 15-9 Eagles will kick off the tournament by hosting Del Mar High at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Blackford in a second-round game. Meanwhile, after finishing the year with a 12-11 record, the girls travel to Carmel High School today for a first-round match-up. Come cheer on the teams as they make a run for the finals!
The boys wrapped up the year with a 10-4-2 record after defeating Priory 4-2 and then playing league champion Sacred Heart to an impressive 0-0 tie. Congrats to the Eagles on an outstanding season!
Grade 2 chess enthusiast Vyom Vidyarthi has been very busy the past few months. On Feb. 8, he took first place out of 84 competitors in his age group at the 2015 CalNorth Youth Chess Championship, winning all five of his matches. In November, he was ranked No. 66 among the top 100 chess players in the country in the Age 7 and Under category. He ranked at No. 94 in the same category in September.
In November, Bhavya Srinivasan, grade 2, received a letter from the White House after writing to President Barack Obama to express her concerns about smoking. The letter, which included a signed photo of the Obama family, thanked Bhavya for writing and told her about some of the recent initiatives to improve and maintain the health of America’s youth.
Wrestlers qualified for CCS, the soccer season is wrapping up and the girls basketball team had a Senior Night to remember. Let’s get to the scores!
Wrestling
For the second year in a row, sophomore Davis Howard qualified for CCS with a fifth place finish at the league wrestling championships. Freshman Anthony Contreras, meanwhile, will be second alternate for CCS after an eighth place finish, becoming only the fourth freshman in Harker’s history to place at the varsity level in league finals. Catch Howard and Contreras at CCS the weekend of Feb. 27!
Soccer
The girls just missed qualifying for the playoffs after losing to Notre Dame and Kings Academy to finish 7-8-1 overall.
Last week, the boys defeated Eastside College Prep 5-3 thanks to two goals from junior Omar Hamade and one apiece from seniors Eric Roxlo, Jeremiah Anderson and Alan Guo. Earlier this week, the team defeated Woodside Priory 4-2; it will take on Sacred Heart Prep today.
Basketball
The boys squad lost a heartbreaker against Pinewood last week on a last second shot 52-49 but rebounded with a dramatic 65-52 victory over Eastside College Prep to improve to 13-9 overall.
After Crystal Spring forfeited last week, the girls enjoyed a memorable Senior Night with an intersquad scrimmage. Team Green defeated Team White! Unfortunately, the girls lost to King’s Academy this week to fall to 12-10.