The girls tennis and golf teams both have .600 records or better, while two cross country runners ran their best runs ever at Woodward Park, and the football team plays under the lights this Friday! Here are all the results from the world of Harker sports last week:
Cross Country
At the prestigious Clovis Cross Country Invitational in Fresno on Saturday, both senior Corey Gonzales and sophomore Niki Iyer ran outstanding races to beat their previous best times at Woodward Park. The team will run in the secpnd league meet this Thursday at Baylands Park.
Golf
The girls lost a heartbreaker to Menlo last week, falling to their rival by a single stroke in a neck-and-neck 209-208 battle. They bounced back the next day, however, to crush Mercy-Burlingame by over 40 strokes, 221-264. Their record now stands at 4-2-1 overall. The team faces Sacred Heart on Friday.
Tennis
The girls are now the proud owners of an 11-3 record after a 2-1 week in which they beat Crystal Springs and Gunderson while dropping a match to rival Sacred Heart Prep. They’ll look to improve their record as they take on Castilleja and Menlo this week.
Volleyball
Junior Doreene Kang had 11 kills as the girls beat Castilleja last week to bring their record to 5-7. They hit the road this week for two tough matches against Mercy-SF and Sacred Heart Prep.
Water Polo
Both the boys and girls varsity teams lost to Lynbrook last week, while the junior varsity boys pulled out a 9-8 victory. The teams play at home today against Fremont.
Football
The Eagles are now 1-4 on the season after losing to San Lorenzo Valley on Saturday. Freshman Nate Kelly was a threat as a wide receiver and a running back, pulling down two passes for 27 yards in the first half and running for 26 yards on five carries in the second. Senior quarterback Keanu Forbes completed four passes out of 13 attempts for 48 yards in the first half, and sophomore running back Will Park ran for 45 yards on six carries. The team will play under the lights this Friday at Davis Field when they host CSD!
Don’t forget, Harker now has a Twitter feed just for athletics. Check out the updates at @harkerathletics!
The Eagles trounced Ribet Academy 51-6 en route to a big Homecoming win, with touchdowns by seven different Eagles: senior Keanu Forbes, junior Johnathon Keller, and freshmen Tyerinn Pollard, Anthony Contreras, Nate Kelly, Angel Cervantes and Dominic Cea. Senior Alyssa Amick put the exclamation mark on three touchdowns with extra point kicks. The team travels to San Lorenzo Valley on Saturday. Watch the video of the Harker Homecoming Experience!
Water Polo
Harker’s only upper school home contests in any sport this week are the water polo games the Eagles will host at the Singh Aquatic Center Thursday. The boys will be coming off of a 2-2 result at the Sobrato Tournament, in which they defeated both Lincoln and Sobrato. Meanwhile, the girls have had a tough season so far, with a 4-10 overall record and 1-5 league record despite never falling by more than three goals. Root for both on Thursday!
Tennis
The girls dropped their match to state powerhouse Menlo last week, 6-1, with freshman Lizzie Schick earning the sole victory for the Eagles. The team will have plenty of opportunities the rebound this week, with three matches on the schedule.
Cross Country
The Eagles competed in the first WBAL cross country meet of the year last week, with senior Corey Gonzales leading the boys to a sixth-place finish and sophomore Niki Iyer leading the girls to a seventh-place finish. Gonzales and Iyer each finished second in the course, a hill-heavy stretch across 2.8 miles.
Volleyball
The girls varsity squad is now 4-7 after beating Notre Dame-San Jose last week. This Thursday, the team will head to Castilleja for a crucial league match.
Golf
The girls lost to a tough Castilleja squad last week but bounced back to defeat Mercy-Burlingame, giving the Eagles a 3-1-1 record.
This year’s Harker Homecoming was another fun-filled event for the entire community. On an unseasonably hot fall afternoon, students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni arrived at the upper school campus in droves to socialize, enjoy fresh food prepared by the Harker kitchen staff, watch performances by talented Harker students and root for the Eagles. The bounce houses set up on Rosenthal Field were again a popular attraction for the younger attendees, while alumni gathered to catch up and reminisce. Prior to the game, the Eaglets fly-by and performances by the Junior Cheerleaders and Varsity Dance Team got the crowd amped. The Harker Pep Band kept the crowd moving throughout the evening.
Halftime opened with a performance by the Harker cheer squad, after which the Class of 2015 defeated grade 11 to take first place in the tug-of-war. Grades 9 and 10 faced off for third-place in the competition, with the sophomores coming away victorious. The crowd then greeted this year’s Homecoming Court, and applauded as senior siblings Shiki and Shreya Dixit were named Homecoming King and Queen. Topping it all off was a 51-6 Harker Eagles win over visitors Ribet Academy. Check out the video of the 2014 Harker Homecoming!
The sports season is in full swing, with girls golf rocketing past previous team records thanks to an onslaught of career-best performances. Meanwhile, two cross country runners sped past their competition at the Stanford Invitational, the football squad racked up 400 yards of offense on the gridiron, the girls tennis team blanked Fremont and the girls water polo team grabbed their first win of the year. Let’s get to it!
Golf
The girls golf team kicked off league play brilliantly, shooting a Harker team best of 197 to beat Notre Dame San Jose last week in a game that saw numerous career bests. Junior Ashley Zhong (38), freshman Vanessa Tyagi (41), senior Madelyn Wang (45) and sophomore Alexis Gauba (50) all broke their best-ever marks, while junior Daphne Liang (39) tied hers. The best score of the day went to freshman Katherine Zhu, who earned medalist honors with a par performance of 34. The team record bested the previous record set just last week of 205 strokes and catapulted the team into a tie with rival Sacred Heart Prep the very next day, 228-228.
Cross Country
Senior Corey Gonzales and sophomore Niki Iyer ran blisteringly fast races in the Stanford Invitational Cross Country Race on Saturday. Gonzales’ fiery run was a personal best and placed him 11th out of 260 runners from throughout the state. Iyer, meanwhile, beat out 252 other runners to place fifth in her Division 4 race. Both Gonzales and Iyer will look to defend their times from last year’s league championship in the first WBAL meet of the year this week.
A number of runners also had big days on Saturday at the Westmoor High School course. Both senior Rahul Balakrishnan and sophomore Andrew Rule ran personal bests by nearly one minute over their races last year. Junior Alex Dellar ran a strong 16:30, while freshman Aria Coalson pushed hard for a great finish and a 20:12 time.
Football
The Eagles dropped their game against the Mt. Pleasant Cardinals on Friday night despite racking up 400 yards of offense thanks to great performances by seniors Keanu Forbes and Christian Williams, junior JK Keller, sophomore Will Park, and freshmen Nate Kelly, Anthony Escobar and Dominic Cea. Two freshmen defensive players, James Pauli and Anthony Contreras, also had standout games.
Volleyball
The girls volleyball squad’s record now stands at 3-6 after the team went 1-3 at the Presentation Tournament, where it fell to highly ranked teams from Rocklin, Los Gatos and Valley Christian.
Tennis
The girls suffered their first defeat of the season against Milpitas before bouncing back convincingly with a dominant 7-0 victory over Fremont.
Water Polo
The boys team lost its first game of the season when Wilcox stunned the Eagles with a come-from-behind victory, erasing the memory of a dominant 16-3 trouncing of Santa Clara earlier in the week. Both the varsity and junior varsity teams are now 3-1 in league play. Meanwhile, the girls defeated Wilcox for their very first league win of the season, 16-9, behind goals from seniors Delaney Martin, Anushka Das and Sheridan Tobin, junior Yasemin Narin, sophomores Meghana Karinthi and Sarah de Vegvar, and freshman Emma Brezoczky.
School has begun, and the fall sports season is underway! Harker tennis is off to a scorching hot start, while underclassmen are making big impacts already. Let’s get to it!
Tennis
The girls tennis team opened up its season by going 5-0 to become the Division 6 champs at the prestigious California Tennis Classic in Fresno, battling 100 degree heat to finish unbeaten! This week, they extended their hot start with victories over Santa Clara and Wilcox, to make them 7-0. The team will look to improve to 8-0 against King’s Academy on Thursday.
Golf
Freshman Katherine Zhu made her Harker debut a day to remember, finishing third in a 90-golfer field at Poplar Creek. Zhu shot an even par 71, leading the Eagles to an eighth place finish. Juniors Ashley Zhong and Daphne Liang also chipped in with scores of 85 and 87, respectively. Zhu continued her sizzling play by shooting a 3 under par 31 at Los Lagos to pace the Eagles to a 205-230 win over Evergreen High School. Meanwhile, Zhong’s 41 and freshman Vanessa Tyagi’s 42 contributed to Harker’s best team score ever at Los Lagos since scoring changed from four to five scores in 2010. Zhu’s performance is the best girls Harker round in history. Furthermore, on Monday, Zhu shot an even par 72 to finish tied for third at the Poppy Ridge Classic. The lady linksters finished in 12th place out of 22 teams. Liang and Zhong carded 83 and 84 respectively. With the pre-season tournaments and matches concluding this week, the Eagles are ready to start the WBAL season against Notre Dame San Jose on Monday at Los Lagos.
Cross Country
Last year’s rookie standout Niki Iyer, back now for her sophomore year, began the fall 2014 season with a strong second place finish at the Toro Park cross country meet on Saturday. Juniors Alex Dellar and Maya Jeyendran and junior Mary Najibi all ran around 23:00 for the girls, who finished in eighth, while senior Corey Gonzales, junior Jack Rothschild and senior Rahul Balakrishnan all ran well for the boys. Gonzales’ run was a highlight for the men, as his eighth-place finish landed him firmly in the top 10.
Water Polo
Both the boys and the girls opened up the year with tournaments, with the boys going 1-3 at the Lynbrook Tournament and the girls going 1-2 at the Wilcox Tournament last week. The girls’ performance included an 11-5 victory against San Lorenzo Valley. On Tuesday, the boys defeated Lynbrook 16-8. This marks the first time Harker has defeated Lynbrook in at least eight years! Congratulations, boys! The girls squad lost to Lynbrook 8-5. Anushka Das, grade 12, scored three goals.
Football
The football squad is off to an 0-2 start. Senior quarterback Keanu Forbes threw for two touchdowns and ran for another in a 38-21 loss to Overfelt in the season opener. Senior Christian Williams and freshman Nate Kelly each caught a touchdown, and senior kicker Alyssa Amick added an extra point in the loss. The team then fell in its second game to Del Mar High, despite touchdowns by Forbes, Williams, junior Johnathon Keller and sophomore Will Park. They’ll look for their first victory of the year this Friday at Swett High School.
Volleyball
This season started off with two challenges for the girls, who were pitted against top teams in their first two matches. They lost to a strong Homestead team one game to three in the season opener, then dropped their second game to St. Francis despite 12 kills from senior Shreya Dixit and seven from junior Shannon Richardson. This week, girls varsity volleyball defeated visiting Carmel on Tuesday 23-25, 26-24, 25-13, 25-12 behind 28 kills for Dixit. The girls host Willow Glen Thursday night.
Returning to Harker’s lineup of summer sports camps after a successful first year, the TRX training camp offered middle and high school students the chance to learn several new fitness techniques and train for the upcoming school sports season. TRX is a suspension training system developed by Navy SEALs that utilizes the practitioner’s body weight and can be fine-tuned to each user’s needs and specifications. The highly portable training system helps develop strength, endurance and a solid core.
Camp director Karriem Stinson, Harker middle school athletics director and certified TRX group instructor, said that he has seen massive improvement in the students who were new to the camp. “We’ve had some kids that come in here [who] couldn’t even do a plank for 25 seconds, and now I’ve got kids who are doing planks for a minute,” he said. “The kids are responding to what the training’s doing for them.”
Stinson also noted that at least one student reported having been accepted to a varsity sports team, and said that she could not have done so without her TRX training.
Hockey enthusiast and rising Harker eighth grader Andrew Skrobak found TRX helpful as well. “I don’t get knocked off the puck as easily,” he said.
Ellie Olsen, who is entering grade 7 at Campbell Christian, credited TRX with helping prepare her for soccer competition. “It strengthens my legs a lot more,” she said, noting that the she also found the exercises fun.
After consecutive successful summers, Harker’s summer water polo camp returned, adding another session due to high demand. “Last year a lot of the parents asked us to do two sessions, so this year we answered,” said water polo coach and camp co-director Allie Lamb, a 15-year veteran of the sport, who ran the camp with coach Ted Ujifusa, head coach of the Harker boys water polo team.
The weeklong camp, which ran June 16-20 and July 14-18, was designed for students in grades 4-8 new to the sport, emphasizing fundamental skills such as eggbeater kicking (or “eggbeatering”), passing and shooting. “We really concentrate on teaching the fundamentals of the game and a lot of these kids have never played water polo before,” Lamb said. “Water polo’s a pretty tough sport if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Among the most important skills taught at the camp is eggbeater kicking, an essential skill for new and experienced players. Lamb compared the technique to when players in other sports rest on the field. “Eggbeatering is our resting, so if you’re not able to do that to the point where you’re able to keep your head above water, well, now you’re resting underwater,” she said.
The most popular part of the water polo camp is scrimmaging, or the informal pickup games. “The playing of the game is something that they really enjoy,” Lamb said.
Samantha Yanovsky, a rising grade 8 Harker student, said the camp was helpful to her because it provided a way for her to learn the sport, which has a history in her family. “My sister, brother and cousins all did water polo, so I wanted to do water polo, too,” she said. “It’s a difficult sport but it’s fun.”
Harker’s summer sports camps kicked off in late June with basketball camp, which ran June 23-27 at the middle school campus. Focused on the fundamentals of the sport, the camp was open to students in grades 4-8 and was led by veteran basketball coach and camp director John “Sarge” Siers.
A longtime friend of upper school division head and varsity basketball coach Butch Keller, Siers has been teaching at summer basketball camps since 1985. His coaching philosophy is that first, he says, “[Campers] must have fun. When they have fun, they are open to part two: they must be taught.”
Campers participate in a series of drills designed to teach them fundamental basketball skills such as dribbling, ball handling, passing and shooting. Developing these skills, Sarge said, increases the enjoyment of the game. “The better their skills the more fun they will have,” he said. “We teach them what they need to be a complete player no matter what level they choose to play at.”
Sarge’s hope is that by the end of the camp, the students will have gained a new appreciation for the sport and more confidence in their abilities. “My goal is that they have fallen in love with a game I have dedicated my life to,” he said. “I want them to understand how to set goals, how to play basketball and how to believe in themselves.”
The summer coed volleyball camp, among Harker’s most popular summer offerings, gave students of many skill levels the chance to hone their skills under the instruction of top-level instructors. Fun was the top priority at the camp, which grouped students by age and skill level and included warm-ups, drills, volleyball-themed games and team play.
“We’ve had many returning campers, which is a sign we’re doing something right. That’s always very encouraging,” said Harker’s upper school athletic director and boys volleyball coach Dan Molin. A veteran coach of more than 20 years at the collegiate, high school and club levels, Molin co-directed the camp with Theresa “Smitty” Smith, who has worked at Harker for 22 years and was the 2007 Mercury News CCS Volleyball Coach of the Year.
Each day started with a dynamic warm-up session of stretches and ball-control exercises. Following a half-hour of team play, the campers moved to drill stations that emphasized various volleyball skills, including passing, setting, hitting and serving.
“Every year I come here I gain a little more experience,” said Ryan Sun, who will start grade 8 at BASIS in the fall. He added that “playing volleyball and probably the hitting” were his favorite parts of the camp.
Several Harker volleyball players also volunteered at the camp, acting as assistants and mentors to the campers. “I really like the sport. I also like working with kids and helping them get better,” said Harker student Taylor Iantosca, who enters grade 10 in the fall. “I like just being around people, and then doing something that I love on top of that. So it’s fun.”
With World Cup fever in full effect, Harker’s summer soccer camp provided players of many skill levels with the opportunity to learn about one of the world’s most popular sports in a fun and supportive environment. The camp was directed by Harker soccer coach Shaun Tsakiris, who worked with coaches from San Jose’s De Anza Force soccer club to offer campers an enjoyable and comprehensive learning experience.
“The themes are the same. We always want to make sure we make it entertaining and challenging for kids,” said Tsakiris, who competed in four NCAA tournaments and received the MVP award from UCLA in 2000.
Campers started each day with a half hour of agility, strength and balance training. Instructors made an effort to incorporate a soccer ball into exercises as much as possible. Students then broke off into groups, with one going to the middle school campus for futsal (indoor soccer) while others worked on soccer skills at Davis Field, rotating through stations for shooting, passing and receiving and dribbling. Students also practiced one-on-one situations and participated in game play.
Fun activities such as soccer tennis – in which two players square off on either side of a net – and group games at the end of the camp day kept the camp fresh.
Joshua Pynadath, who in the fall will be a seventh grader at the American School of Madrid in Spain, has participated with De Anza Force before and said the camp was a good way to brush up on his skills and see his friends and coaches. “The competition I think is good and the drills we do are really fun,” he said. “The last day is probably the best because we get to play everyone in a big sort of tournament.”
“It’s really fun,” said Patrick Geleziunas, who will soon start grade 8 at Ralston Middle School. “I’m learning new stuff and [meeting] new players, and it’s fun playing with them.”