Last week, the undefeated boys golf team took down undefeated Menlo to remain in first place.
This week, they did it again, eking out a 191-194 victory against Sacred Heart Prep. The boys are now in sole possession of first place in the WBAL. Junior Shrish Dwivedi and sophomore Dakota McNealy both shot 2-over-par 37’s to give Harker a three-stoke lead after the first group. Freshman sensation Avi Khemani gave Harker its best score of the day with a 1-over-par 36, crushing his opponent by five strokes and giving Harker a thrilling victory.
Harker’s male golfers are off to the best start in their history, after becoming the first Harker team to defeat both Menlo and Sacred Heart Prep in the same season.
Volleyball
The boys went 3-0 last week, trouncing Eastside College Prep twice and handing then-undefeated Lynbrook (13-0) their first defeat of the season! The hot week bumped the boys’ record up to 10-2 overall and 4-1 in league. Senior Andrew Zhu led the team in kills over the week, with senior Will Deng, junior Shiki Dixit and freshman Andrew Gu right behind him. Junior Matt Ho led the team in assists. This Friday and Saturday, Harker is a host site for the Bellarmine Tournament, in which some of the top teams in the state will compete.
Soccer
The season is over, but the accolades keep coming! This week, three of Harker’s female athletes were featured in the San Jose Mercury News as honorable mentions for the All-Mercury News girls soccer team: freshman forward Joelle Anderson, junior defender Gabi Gupta and senior goalkeeper Alicia Clark.
Track and Field
The Eagles are off to a hot start, posting 15 personal bests in their first league track meet. The top three finishers in the high jump were Harker athletes, led by senior Parth Kothari. Senior Claudia Tischler and freshman Niki Iyer won their 1600m and 3200m, with Iyer’s time of 5:08:84 from last week holding up as the top freshman time in the state. Harker senior Arjun Kumar and sophomore Arthur Ye won their divisions in varsity and junior varsity shotput, respectively. Senior Nithya Vemireddy and junior Julia Wang placed third and fifth in the shotput and second and third in the discus, respectively.
Swimming
The girls beat out King’s Academy last week with a tense 81-78 victory, while the boys fell 77-90. The varsity event winners included senior Manon Audebert, senior Kimberley Ma, sophomore Angela Huang, sophomore Sandhana Kannan, sophomore Grace Guan, junior Aaron Huang, junior Craig Neubieser and freshman Michael Auld. Guan, Angela Huang, Ma, Auld and Aaron Huang all qualified for CCS.
Softball
Harker’s sluggers earned their first victory of the season in blowout fashion, dominating Andrew Hill 16-4. Junior Sarah Bean, junior Vivian Isenberg, freshman Marti Sutton and sophomore Alisa Wakita each had more than one hit.
Baseball
The boys nearly pulled off a triumphant comeback but finally fell short in an 8-7 loss to Priory. Freshman Varun Haltore had two RBI’s, while junior Keanu Forbes had two hits. On the mound, freshman Nic Bean and senior Varun Kamat combined for 11 strikeouts.
Tennis
The boys lost to state powerhouse Menlo last week, but still own a winning record at 8-5. The junior varsity team has a 4-2 record.
Lacrosse
The girls suffered some tough league losses last week to rivals Notre Dame San Jose, Gunn and Mitty. Goals were scored by junior Hannah Bollar, junior Allison Kiang, senior Mabel Luo and senior Mary Liu. Senior Christine Lee had 43 saves in goal over those three games.
Late last month, Bradley Stoll, mathematics department chair, was named the recipient of an Inspirational Teacher Award from MIT. Alumna Lorraine Wong ’13 nominated Stoll for the award, saying of him, “I am immensely grateful that you believed in me in math, and more importantly, in life, and that you are not afraid to share your belief that being a kind human is more important than getting the best grades in a class.”
Stoll expressed gratitude at being nominated and said he was honored by Wong’s sentiments. “Lorraine’s nomination will be a constant reminder to me that I need to see and treat each student as an individual and not compartmentalize them by their grades,” he said “that I need to be compassionate, that sometimes I need to be their teacher, sometimes I need to be their friend.”
UPDATE: Videos of the keynote speakers, breakout sessions and the panel discussion from this year’s Research Symposium are now available on YouTube.
Science enthusiasts from across the Harker community gathered at the upper school campus on March 29 for this year’s Harker Research Symposium. In the nearly 10 years since its founding, the research symposium has provided lovers of scientific research with an eventful day in which students, parents, faculty and staff meet to share their enthusiasm, see the results of student research and hear from notable members of the scientific community.
The Nichols Hall atrium was once again the epicenter of activity for the event, with exhibitors from companies such as Google, NVidia and the South Asian Heart Center providing information to passersby and holding tech demos. SeaLife Aquarium Maintenance, stationed in front of the atrium’s aquarium, gave attendees the opportunity to observe and touch starfish and other forms of aquatic life. Tesla Motors also had a presence, giving people a chance to test drive one of their award-winning electric cars. Over at the rotunda, Brian Tuan, grade 12, demonstrated a 3-D printer to a steady stream of onlookers as it constructed such objects as a toy car and a plastic model of Batman’s head.
Nichols Hall auditorium and classrooms hosted formal talks by Harker students known as breakout sessions, where students gave detailed presentations on their research projects. Some of these, such as senior Vikas Bhetanabhotla’s project on the identification of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxys and Zareen Choudhury’s investigation of the chemical makeup of stars, earned recognition in prestigious contests such as the Siemens Competition and Intel Science Talent Search. At the gym, middle and upper school students had poster presentations set up showing the results of research they had performed. Students were on hand to answer questions about their research projects, impressing those in attendance with both the depth of the research and their presentation skills.
Morning keynote speaker Claire Max, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California, Santa Cruz, shared her work on adaptive optics with a capacity crowd in the auditorium. Using informative photos and videos, Max showed how turbulence in space can obscure telescopes’ view of the stars. Adaptive optics corrects this distortion using mirrors and laser technology. This technology, she explained, can be used to enhance images of planets and find out where black holes ended up as galaxies collided. It has also been used to enhance images of the human eye, which she demonstrated with close-up videos of blood cells traveling through capillaries.
Two alumni were featured as speakers at this year’s symposium. The first, Ilya Sukhar ’03, shared some of the lessons he learned (including some misconceptions he had during his years as a Harker student) in entrepreneurship as the founder and CEO of Parse, which was acquired by Facebook in 2013. Parse, which still operates independently, enables developers to more easily create mobile apps for multiple platforms. Nikhil Parthasarathy ’11, speaking during a special lunchtime event at Manzanita Hall, discussed his current exploits as an undergraduate at Stanford University, which included exciting work in artificial intelligence. He addressed Harker’s current students, telling them they may end up taking many paths, arriving somewhere they might not have anticipated.
Khan Academy founder Salman Khan was the star of the afternoon, packing both the auditorium and the gym, where all of the keynote addresses were simulcast. Khan talked about how what began as a hobby in 2004 – tutoring his cousin in math – turned into one of the world’s most popular online learning resources, used by more than six million unique visitors each month. During the extended question-and-answer session, Khan was kind enough to move from Nichols Hall to the gym for those who were unable to view his talk in person.
The day ended with a panel discussion featuring upper school science department chair Anita Chetty, science teacher Chris Spenner, Harker parent Manish Gupta (Aarzu, grade 6; Anika, grade 12), junior Jason Chu and seniors Bhetanabhotla, Stephanie Chen, Choudhury, Anika Gupta, Sreyas Misra and Vikram Sundar. The panel discussed the various options offered by Harker’s research program and included student testimonials on their experiences conducting research at Harker.
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.
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!
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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.