The boys basketball team’s historic season came to a close Wednesday night as they lost to a strong St. Patrick/St. Vincent team 60-42 in a first-round NorCal playoff game. Wei Wei Buchsteiner, grade 12, led the Eagles with 16 points, and Will Deng, grade 12, came back from a knee injury to contribute 10 points. Last Saturday, they took on, but were defeated by, multiple CCS champ Sacred Heart Prep in the league championship. Though the boys lost in their first-ever appearance in the section finals 48-37, they united the entire Harker community during a fun and spirited afternoon of exciting basketball. The boys ended with an 18-11 record and their first-ever appearance in a section final and NorCal game. Congratulations boys!
Varsity girls lacrosse lost to Menlo-Atherton and Sequoia last week to open their season. The JV squad defeated Aragon 9-1 in their debut. The varsity team defeated Santa Catalina 17-14 on Wednesday in Monterey to earn their first victory of the season. Hannah Bollar, grade 11, scored 6 goals, Mary Liu, grade 12, recorded a personal high of five goals and Allison Kiang, grade 11, made three goals. Mabel Luo, grade 12, contributed with two goals, and defender Alicia Clark, grade 12, scored her first goal of the season. The entire team has improved dramatically since the first game of the season. Come support the girls as they play Burlingame at home next Tuesday!
The Eagle track team joined 3,000 other athletes in the K-Bell meet on Saturday. Niki Iyer, grade 9, defeated a strong field in her first ever 3200m run, running a time that would have ranked her in the top 10 in the CCS last year. She was mentioned in the San Jose Mercury News’ After School column http://blogs.mercurynews.com/hssports/2014/03/11/track-and-field-top-performances-from-the-k-bell-classic/
Meanwhile, Sidhart Krishnamurthi and Allen Huang, both grade 11, broke 13 seconds for the first time in their 100m races. Mehul Khetrapal, grade 10, won his race in the 200m and 400m. Lucas Wang and Winnie Li, both grade 9, took over the team long jump lead with fine jumps on Saturday; Li was also the top Eagle runner in the 100m. The team competes Saturday in the St. Francis Invitational.
Boys golf opened league play yesterday with a 182-230 victory over Crystal Springs at Los Lagos. Shrish Dwivedi, grade 11, was the low scorer with a 32. The boys face Crystal again today at Poplar Creek.
Softball lost to Fremont Friday in their opener 14-13. Hits were from: Tong Wu, grade 10; Sarah Bean, grade 11; Briana Liang, grade 11; Nitya Mani, grade 11; Alisa Wakita, grade 10; and Marti Sutton, grade 9. The girls face Silver Creek tomorrow at the middle school campus.
Boys tennis placed third in their division at the Fresno Tournament over the weekend, winning four matches and losing one.
Baseball started the season with losses to St. Lawrence and Washington last week.
During the holiday season, Harker alumni got together for several fun happenings, including a 10-year reunion, informal soccer game and the ever-popular Santa’s Winter Wonderland event. Enjoy this special winter photo montage slideshow recalling several holiday alumni events!
Class of 2003 Holds Fun 10-Year Reunion
Nearly 70 alumni from the Class of 2003 got together for a casual 10-year reunion just before Harker’s winter break. The event took place at the Village Bistro on Santana Row. A good time was had by all!
Alumni Victorious in Soccer Game Held Over Winter Break
More than a dozen graduates from the classes of 2010, 2012 and 2013 had a blast playing soccer in a fun, informal game, held during Harker’s winter break, which pitted the alumni against the boys varsity soccer team. The alumni emerged victorious with a final score of 7-4.
Once again, Santa’s Winter Wonderland brought together alumni and their families. The special annual holiday celebration was held in early December on the lower school campus for Harker alumni, faculty, staff and their families. A highlight of the beloved pre-Christmas event was watching children take turns sitting on Santa’s lap and having pictures taken with him, which were then printed out for them to keep. The children also had fun playing games and doing arts and crafts.
History came alive for grade 3 students and their teachers at the end of January when they attended school dressed as their favorite historical figures. The fun, fifth-annual Dress for History Day showcased favorite historic fashions, including cowboys, miners, Native Americans and more. The students had been instructed to come to school dressed in a historic fashion from before they were born.
This story was submitted by Harker middle school math teacher Vandana Kadam.
Harker students had great success at the Mathcounts chapter level contest in mid-February. Harker brought a team of four students, as well as six others who participated as individuals. This year, seven grade 8 and three grade 7 students represented Harker. The team comprised Jimmy Lin, Rajiv Movva and Shaya Zarkesh, all grade 8, and Katherine Tian, grade 7.
The individual participants were grade 8 students Jerry Chen, Michael Kwan, Jeffrey Ma and and Randy Zhao, as well as grade 7 students Rose Guan and Cindy Wang. Everyone performed exceptionally well. The Santa Clara Valley Chapter is known to be the toughest chapter for Mathcounts nationwide, with about 430 students from 52 schools participating. Harker’s team placed fourth in the chapter behind Miller Middle School, Cupertino Middle School and Redwood Middle School, who were all within three points of each another. Harker’s team will head to the state competition on March 22 at Stanford University.
In addition to the four team members, Chen will go to the state competition as an individual participant (not on the regular team) due to his excellent performance at the chapter competition. Also noteworthy is that Movva placed first in the countdown round, in which a group of students is given 45 seconds to answer a question. The student who buzzes first gets to answer and, if they answer correctly, they move to the next round. Prior to the final round, there were several rounds where the first student to answer two out of three problems correctly was declared the winner. In the Santa Clara Valley Chapter, students buzz within the first three seconds of the question being shown on the projector, creating pressure to buzz quickly and give the correct answer. The students worked very hard to reach this level of success, even attending weekend training sessions and after-school sessions since September.
On Saturday, March 29, at the upper school campus, The Harker School’s science department and the student WiSTEM Club (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) will present the ninth annual Harker Research Symposium. This prestigious event, which draws hundreds of attendees each year, serves to highlight the achievements of Harker students passionate about scientific research, as well as celebrate the wonders of research and innovation in Silicon Valley.
Harker students will give formal talks on the methods and results of the research they have done both at Harker and at collegiate and professional labs, much of which has earned recognition in the Siemens Competition and Intel Science Talent Search. The audience will include not only students and parents, but also members of the scientific community. The event is also an opportunity for middle school students to present their research through poster presentations.
Exhibitors from companies such as NVIDIA, IBM, Google and Tesla will offer glimpses at both current technology and what lies ahead, with eye-catching interactive demonstrations and displays.
New this year is the chance to test drive a Tesla, and an activity for grade 5 students, who can compete in a spontaneous STEM challenge. Returning favorites include a student/teacher panel discussion on Harker’s research program and a chemistry “magic show.”
The morning keynote speaker for this year’s research symposium is Dr. Claire Max, professor of astrophysics and director of the Center for Adaptive Optics at University of California, Santa Cruz. Over the last decade, adaptive optics technology has been used to enhance the capabilities of astronomical telescopes by correcting the blurring caused by turbulence in the atmosphere. This technology also is helping further the understanding of black holes in nearby merging galaxies. Dr. Max also will discuss the applications of this optical technology in imagining the human retina.
Ilya Sukhar ’03 will be this year’s alumni speaker. After graduating with honors from Cornell University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Sukhar worked as an engineer for the online video company Ooyala before working in product and engineering at Etact, which was acquired by Salesforce. He is now the founder and CEO of Parse, whose product greatly eases the process of creating mobile apps across multiple platforms. In 2013, Facebook acquired Parse, which is still independently operated.
This year’s keynote speaker is Salman Khan, the founder and executive director of the Khan Academy (khanacademy.org), a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing high-quality education to people all over the world, free of charge. An MIT grad with degrees in computer science, mathematics and electrical engineering as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School, Khan began tutoring his cousin in math in 2004 while working at a hedge fund based in Boston. His clientele eventually grew to 15 family members and friends, prompting him to create software that would help its users practice the concepts they were learning. He also created YouTube videos to accompany the software. By 2009, Khan’s videos were receiving tens of thousands of views each month. Khan then decided it was time to make Khan Academy a full-time occupation. Today, Khan Academy provides thousands of learning resources, including more than 100,000 exercises and 4,000 videos, on a variety of subjects. It is now accessed by more than 6 million unique users each month, making it one of the most widely used online educational resources.
For information and a detailed schedule, please visit www.harker.org/symposium.
Five Harker instrumentalists were selected for the 2014 All-State Honor Band and played in formal concerts over the weekend, and another student was selected for the National Youth Orchestra and will perform with that group this summer.
Victoria Ding, grade 10, flute; Andrew Kim, grade 10, double bass; Austin Lai, grade 11, viola; Kristen Park, grade 10, soprano clarinet; and James Shaw, grade 8, trombone, were selected from more than 1,700 applicants statewide by the California Band Directors Association, an affiliate of the California Association for Music Education. “This is the ninth straight year we’ve had students in all-state,” said Chris Florio, upper school orchestra director, “and this is the largest number of students we have had accepted in a single year.”
Those selected played in a concert band, jazz band or orchestra in Fresno following concentrated rehearsals. “James is a member of the Grades 7-8 Orchestra and Middle School Jazz Band this year,” said Dave Hart, middle school orchestra director. “He was first chair in the Junior High All-State Band. This was a great opportunity for James, who said that he left the experience inspired by the music and new friends he made.”
In other exciting music news, Helen Wu, grade 11, was recently accepted to the National Youth Orchestra. Wu has not yet committed to the program, but being accepted “is a huge honor,” said Florio. “It is a month-long program that is sponsored by Carnegie Hall and is 100 percent free. The orchestra is extremely competitive to get into. The orchestra will be conducted by St. Louis conductor David Robertson and will tour the U.S., performing at such halls as Carnegie, Disney Center and others.”
This report prepared by Gregory Achten, debate coach
The Harker Forensics program has a proud tradition of excellence and competitive success. Over President’s Day weekend, we had some particularly spectacular results that merit special recognition. One hundred twenty-seven Harker upper and middle school students competed in speech and debate events at the California Round Robin and the California Invitational at UC Berkeley. The California Round Robin is an elite tournament where some of the best debaters nationwide compete by invitation only. The California Invitational tournament had 2,064 entries from 197 schools from 26 states and five countries.
Round Robin In Public Forum, seniors Maneesha Panja and Sebi Nakos took first place in their pools while senior Jithin Vellian and junior Nikhil Kishore took second, causing them to meet in the semifinals. Panja and Nakos advanced and were named champions in Public Forum Debate. Nakos also was named third overall speaker in the division. In Lincoln-Douglas Debate, junior Pranav Reddy and senior Srikar Pyda both placed first in their respective pools. Pyda lost in the semifinals, but Reddy was undefeated and named tournament champion.
California Invitational at UC Berkeley The combined success of all members of the team earned Harker first place in debate sweepstakes and third place in the speech and debate combined sweepstakes. This is a huge accomplishment and all of the students played a part in helping Harker achieve this recognition.
In Lincoln-Douglas, Pranav Reddy won 13 consecutive debates at the tournament, beating out 280 competitors from across the country to be named the champion of one of the largest and most prestigious tournaments in the nation. Reddy is the first student in the history of the Harker Forensics program to win this event in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Reddy’s national dominance was further highlighted in early February by his victory at the Golden Desert Invitational at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
In Public Forum, sophomore Eesha Chona and freshman Joyce Huang advanced to finals, losing a close decision to Presentation High School. Chona and Huang beat out a field of 190 teams to reach the finals. In Congressional Debate senior Saachi Jain was also a finalist out of more than 130 competitors.
In early February, four Harker seventh graders placed high at the United States Open Music Competition, an annual piano competition that has highlighted the talents of young musicians for more than 20 years. Constance Horng and Nicole Chen took first place in the Open Duet Intermediate category for their performance of Claude Debussy’s “En bateau” from Petite Suite. Tiffany Zhao took second place in both Piano Showcase Solo Junior F and Treasury of Popular Music Intermediate A, as well as fourth place in Open Solo 4B. Sian Smith took fourth place in Treasury of Popular Favorites Intermediate A.
March 2, 2014
Harker’s Business and Entrepreneurial Podcast Series posted its fourth interview, this weekend, featuring Adam Draper. Draper is the CEO and founder of Boost, an organization that accelerates startup companies. His online biography notes he has invested in companies, started companies and daydreamed at different times in his life, and adds, “my life’s ambition is to assist in the creation of an Iron Man suit.”
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Feb. 3, 2014: The third episode of the Business & Entrepreneurship Podcast Series, which features entrepreneur and author Deborah Piscione, is now available for viewing and download in video and audio formats from the Business & Entrepreneurship Podcast Series website, as well as iTunes. Piscione speaks with student Glenn Reddy, grade 11, about her entrepreneurial history in Silicon Valley, her upcoming book and her insights into the future of Silicon Valley business culture.
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On Dec. 31, the latest episode of the Business & Entrepreneurship Podcast Series went live, featuring an interview with Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and Harker parent (Maverick ’13; Dakota, grade 10; Colt, grade 9; and Scout, grade 7). During the episode McNealy discusses his most recent venture, the social media service Wayin. The previous episode featured Satish Dharmaraj, a partner at Redpoint Ventures and Harker parent of Nikhil, grade 7, and Nila, grade 2. Dharmaraj grew his previous company, Zimbra, to $20 million in subscription sales.
The podcast series was started by host Glenn Reddy, grade 11, who approached business and entrepreneurship teacher Juston Glass at the start of the school year about taking on a new project. “After some brainstorming, we decided to make a podcast/videocast series featuring prominent Silicon Valley leaders,” Reddy said.
Episodes are recorded in the multimedia studio at the upper school campus and edited by John Jerney, grade 10. “Right now, the series is sponsored by Harker’s business and entrepreneurship department, but I hope to expand it to include miniseries hosted by other Harker clubs and programs,” said Reddy, adding that the plan is to have new episodes every month, each ranging from about 20 to 30 minutes in length.
March 6, 2014
UPDATE: Huge congratulations to our boys basketball team and Coach Keller on their history making performance Tuesday night! The #6 seeded Eagles defeated #2 seed Seaside 71-61 in the CCS semifinals at Menlo. The win propels the boys into the CCS finals Saturday at Independence High at 4 p.m. vs. league rival Sacred Heart Prep. Additionally, qualifying for the finals entitles them to compete in the Northern California playoffs which start next week. This is the first Harker boys team to qualify for the section finals in any sport!
News Flash: A generous donor has stepped forward to sponsor this Saturday’s entry fee for K-12 students, faculty, and faculty spouses. Last night’s supportive crowd certainly made a huge difference for the boys so please come on out and help the boys bring home the title! GO EAGLES!! Bracket:
http://www.cifccs.org/playoffs/results/13-14/BASKETBALL%20BOYS%20D4%202014.pdf
March 5, 2014
UPDATE: Here are a couple articles on our recent activity in boys basketball!
March 3, 2014
Spring sports get started, but varsity boys basketball is extending its season!
Basketball Last week, both the boys and girls varsity basketball squads competed in CCS Tournament games. The boys advanced to the semifinals after defeating Soquel on Saturday, following their defeat of Carmel 46-40. The score Saturday was 49-42 with Nicholas Nguyen, grade 11, leading the team in assists, steals and deflections while hitting three clutch free throws in the final minute. He was supported by teammates Eric Holt, grade 11, who had a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds, and spark-plug Dylan Patel, grade 11, off the bench, who provided both defensive and offensive fire power in the final quarter. The boys will compete in the semifinals for the second time in three years Tuesday night at 5:30 p.m. against No. 2 seed Seaside High at Menlo. Please come show your support!
The girls’ season ended after they lost a close third round match-up against Mercy Burlingame, 30-27, at College of San Mateo.
Track and Field The Eagles began their track and field season on a cold, rainy day at Mitty. SeniorArjun Kumar and juniorJulia Wang opened up the season with wins in the shot put, while freshman Niki Iyer, making her high school track and field debut after a tremendous cross country season earlier this school year, won the 800m run with a time of 2:24.84.
Tennis The boys tennis team kicked off its season with a 6-1 victory over Leigh High School.
Soccer The girls’ 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 rival a 2-1 win and catapulted them into the CCS Tournament, stunning Harker. The tough loss ended one of the great seasons in Harker’s history, as the girls 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 incredible run did not end on the field, however, as the team had one last great act left in them. The squad changed the start time of their year-end banquet to be able to travel to watch the varsity boys basketball team win in their CCS Tournament game against Carmel. The gesture was just the latest reminder of the great work Harker’s athletes do both on and off the field.
The boys soccer team lost their senior day 4-2 to ECP, with juniorJeremiah Anderson and sophomore Oisin Coveney accounting for the scoring. The boys finish the year with an 11-6-2 record. Go Eagles!