The class of 2016 got a head start on their high school careers on Aug. 24 during freshman orientation day. Students new to Harker arrived early to attend library and technology training sessions. All grade 9 students then convened in the gym to meet with their advisors and advisory groups. After making their introductions, the students in each group sat in a circle and played games to help them get to know one another. All the while, the students were helped along by the Harker Link Crew, grade 11 and 12 students who assist incoming freshmen with their transition to the upper school.
Later, they headed to Davis Field to participate in some fun team-building activities set up by Apex Adventures. The warm late-summer weather was the perfect environment for outdoor fun, as students were divided into teams and competed in games that required teamwork and cooperation to complete. One required teams to fill tubes with holes punched in them with water by plugging the holes with their hands, while another placed a student in a large wooden triangle who attempted to walk across the field while teammates used ropes to balance the triangle on its two “feet.” All the while, students laughed and cheered one another on as they worked together to complete each challenge.
Harker golf star Maverick McNealy, grade 12, wrapped up an eventful summer in mid-August by making it to the quarterfinals of the Northern California Golf Association’s Amateur Match Play Championship. McNealy started strong with a third-place finish in stroke play, shooting 72-71. After winning his first two matches, he later fell behind by two with four holes remaining. He nearly rallied with two birdies to force a playoff, but hit the bunker in the sudden-death playoff, allowing his opponent to advance.
Earlier in August, McNealy won the Silver Creek Valley Junior, shooting 65-72. He scored birdie no fewer than seven times in the first round. “It felt good to finally win one, though my results in bigger events have been exciting,” he said.
Harker athletics opened the new year with a win by both varsity and JV in girls volleyball against Priory. JV won in two sets, but varsity had to keep the hammer down for a five-game marathon, finally winning 15-13 in the fifth set. Read all about it in the Merc! Come watch their home opener at Blackford next Tuesday night v. Homestead! 4:30 JV, 5:45 varsity.
Cross Country
A few cross country runners competed in the Gunn High scrimmage meet yesterday. Sophomore Corey Gonzales won the varsity boys race defeating runners from St. Francis, Palo Alto and Gunn high schools. Senior Tyler Yeats placed sixth. On the girl’s side, Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12, and Claudia Tischler, grade 11, placed ninthth and 11th, respectively. Their next race is Sept. 15 in Salinas.
Varsity football season opens tonight against Yerba Buena at 7! Come on over – the price is right (free)!
In July, a group of Harker water polo players made up of rising seniors Karan Das-Grande, Ryan Hume and Gilad Nilo along with rising junior Stephan Pellissier, competed at a tournament in Hungary, one of the world’s hotspots for the aquatic sport.
As part of a club team from Sacramento, the students performed well at the tournament, taking fourth place overall and defeating a Hungarian team and another American team in the process. “The way the Hungarian teams play is a lot more physical than most other U.S. teams. If you’re against another player in America, you usually don’t wrestle with another player unless you’ve got your hand up to catch the ball or if you have the ball,” Pellissier said. “There, though, it is a lot more physical. You spend a lot more time fighting underwater with the other player.”
The students had plenty of fun during the trip as well, partially because the tournament was hosted at a water park. “When we weren’t playing, we had a blast going down the water slides,” Pellissier said. The trip also gave the students a chance to enjoy the rich local culture, including an Olympic museum, centuries-old churches and a museum that is reputed to have once been a holding place for enemies of the state.
Young volleyball enthusiasts of various skill levels gathered at the middle school campus gym the week of July 16 for this year’s summer volleyball camp. Led by Dan Molin, Harker’s athletic director, and Theresa “Smitty” Smith, volleyball coach, the primary aim of the camp was to provide a fun and lively way to give budding players a solid foundation on which to build.
Each day at the camp began with ball control warm-up exercises, followed by groups of students moving to different areas, or “stations,” that each worked on a different skill, such as setting, serving, spiking or passing. From there, the students would break into teams to play a game utilizing the skills they had just practiced.
“Most importantly, we just want them to have fun,” Molin said. “We try to keep it loose and lively and active, and keep it moving.”
The week started off with a visit from John Wallace, volleyball coach at Santa Clara University, where Harker volleyball star Tanya Schmidt ’07 attended college. “He came in on Monday and did a great job,” Molin recalled. After sharing some of his insights about the sport and how it’s played at a college level, Wallace ran some serving drills with the students.
Lauren Hogan, a grade 8 student at Ida Price Middle School, enrolled in the camp because she wants to try out for her school’s volleyball team. The camp’s setting training was important for her, she said, “Because I want to be a setter and I want to learn how to do it better.”
Another Ida Price student, Derek Hogan, grade 6, also plans to try out for the school volleyball team, and hoped to get better at spiking, “because it helps you get points.”
Although the camp mainly stressed fundamental skills, more advanced concepts such as team formations, defensive positioning and the each player’s role on the court were introduced later in the week.
By the end, however, Molin hoped the students had fun and that they were better equipped to improve themselves as players in the future.
“It’s hard to become a volleyball player in one week,” he said. “Maybe at the end of the week they’ll be a little bit better and they’ll remember one or two things that they can carry to the next level.”
Harker’s campuses are a hubub of sumertime activity as the school opens its doors to the public, extending its huge variety of programs to local students, Harker and non-Harker, and to students from around the globe.
This year saw a potpourri of summer programming options: from Camp+ for younger children, to the Summer Institute (SI) for middle and high school students, to a bevy of sports offerings, and the world renowned English Language Institute (ELI) program.
In fact, for the last 50 years Harker has served as a recognized resource for a wide breadth of summer happenings. New this season was expanded programming for the sports camps. According to Kelly Espinosa, director of summer programs, Harker has always had tennis, soccer, swimming and sports performance camps. But added this year were football, basketball, volleyball and water polo camps.
Much thought went into the new sports camps, which integrated lower and middle-school athletics with upper school instructors to create a seamless path for athletes within their chosen sports. Moreover, sports camp participants taking a morning sports program had the option to enroll separately in another camp’s afternoon activity as well.
At Harker, known for its academic excellence, athletic camps are just one of the summer options. For students in grades K-6, Camp+ offered a full day of morning academics and afternoon activities. Located on Harker’s lower school campus, parents chose sessions by their preferred format, with full, partial-day and morning-only options. Students had the choice of enrolling in either CoreFocus or LOL (Learning Opportunities in Literature). Both programs concluded at 11:30 a.m. to make room for the afternoon activity program, which lasts until 3:30. Core Focus is a three- or four-week math and language arts-focused program. LOL is a two-week integrated curriculum centered around a literary theme. After care is provided until 5:30, which includes pool time, archery and a climbing wall, among other activities.
Meanwhile, The Harker School’s Summer Institute (SI) gives students from grades 6-12 the chance to earn credits, learn new skills and follow their passions. This year’s institute attracted some 722 students, with many taking multiple courses. New offerings were art classes, including portfolio preparation in drawing, 2-D and 3-D. The for-credit courses included a variety of classes across math, history and technology. Upper school enrichment courses spanned math, writing, art, history and driver’s education. Middle school enrichment was also offered, and included several core subjects as well as classes such as So You Think You Can Cook? and Champion Chess.
All SI participants had access to the libraries, pools and a prepared lunch. The wide range of choices and flexible program allowed each student to design a schedule around his or her own academic needs and personal interests to give each their own mix of learning and fun.
In addition to sports offerings, Camp+ and SI, each year more than 100 international students – from elementary through high school – participate in Harker’s renowned ELI program. They come with the goal of improving their English and writing skills but leave with a breathtaking exposure to cultural adventures as well.
It may be an old cliché, but when it comes to educating these foreign students, the world really is their classroom. Cultural adventures give international students the opportunity to get out of the classroom and see top Bay Area sights and, in ELI, weekly field trips provide international students exposure to local points of interest such as the Golden Gate Bridge, beautiful California beaches, Northern California redwood forests and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The trips are incorporated into the curriculum and students use their travel experiences to create written and oral projects for presentation.
“Harker has been offering outstanding summer programs, held on the school’s safe, secure and centrally-located campuses, for over 50 years. We have everything a camp consumer could want,” said Espinosa, noting that whether just out of preschool or about to enter their last year of high school, students of all ages and backgrounds can find their perfect summer program at Harker.
For more information on Harker’s summer offerings visit www.summer.harker.org.
Harker volleyball team member Shannon Richardson, grade 9, wrapped up a stellar July by winning the USA Beach Junior Volleyball Championships, (National Division), age 14 and under category, with her partner, Alexandra Kim of Daly City. The event was held in Milwaukee, on July 28-29. In the two days of play, Richardson and Kim went undefeated.
Richardson and Kim competed against 16 other teams from around the country for the title. “It was a fantastic tournament,” said Ben Barr of USA Beach Junior Volleyball. “They should be very proud!”
In her warm up to nationals, Richardson had a great round in July, including four tournaments and a high performance camp and mini-tournament that was even tougher than the Nationals event.
Her first event was July 14. Richardson and her partner for the trip, Chanti Holroyd, a freshman at Mountain View High School, competed in a California Beach Volleyball Association (CBVA) Cal Cup Qualifier in Pacific Palisades, earning first place in the age 14 and under category, qualifying them for the Sept. 2 championships in Manhattan Beach (see photos – Richardson is on the left in both, Holroyd is wearing the black and white top; Kim is wearing a tee shirt).
Next stop was the USA Junior Beach Volleyball High Performance Camp at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. At the conclusion of the four-day camp on July 18, Richardson participated in a mini-tournament in which girls had to play with a different partner for every match. Richardson was the only camper who did not lose a single match with any of her partners.
Immediately afterwards, Richardson moved on to the USA Junior Beach High Performance Championships at Hermosa Beach, July 19-21. The tourney started with two days of pool play, followed by a day with cross pool and finals. Richardson and Holroyd lost only one match on the first day of pool play, so advanced to finals where they took the gold medal, beating the one team they had lost to in pool play.
Next, July 22, the pair went after the 16-and under category in a CBVA tournament in Doheny, Calif., where they had some tough practice and earned second place.
Richardson’s last outing in this trip was a CBVA Qualifier in Santa Barbara July 24 where Richardson and Holroyd took first place, beating the team they lost to in Doheny two days earlier.
Richardson, who has competed for Harker since grade 4, then traveled to Milwaukee for the USA Junior Beach Championships, where she and partner Kim triumphed!
Brian Park, rising sixth grader (on right in photo) earned a bronze medal at the North American Cup in Anaheim in early July. He fenced in the Youth-10 Men’s Foil event on July 4, finishing third out of 122 entries. He is now ranked 25th in the U.S. in his age bracket.
In the tournament, Park, who fences at Silicon Valley Fencing Center in Los Altos and trains with the owners, Aleksei and Yuliya Murugin, won his pool with five victories and one defeat, seeding 22 going in to the elimination rounds. Park beat his first two elimination opponents easily, then came up against some of the toughest fencers in his age group in the country, starting with Kenji Bravo, who was seeded eighth out of pools and is ranked 14th in the U.S. Elimination bouts for those age 10 and under are of two out of three five-touch encounters.
In each of Park’s first two elimination bouts he won the first two encounters to advance; in the bout with Bravo it took all three encounters. Park won the first encounter 5-3, lost the second 2-5 then came back strong to win the tie breaker 5-0. Park advanced again after beating James Chen, ranked 11th in the U.S., then fenced a very tough bout with Leo Holmes, ranked fourth in the U.S., losing the first encounter 5-4, but overcoming that deficit with back-to-back wins 5-3, 5-3, to lock in a top-three medal.
Park was finally eliminated by Marcello Olivares, who took second, and is ranked number two in the U.S. Park, who has fenced for about three years, has only competed in two national events and four are totaled for national rankings. If Park continues to fencing well nationally his national ranking will rise rapidly. Congrats and best of luck in the upcoming season!
Student golfer Maverick McNealy, who will enter grade 12 this fall, managed to make it to the final eight at the USGA Junior Amateur championship, held July 16-21 at the Golf Club of New England in Stratham, N.H.
McNealy faced Canada’s Matthew Scobie in the quarterfinal match, where he rallied back from 4 down after eight holes, winning three straight holes with birdies on holes nine and 10 and a bogey on hole 11. The back-and-forth continued with Scobie winning holes 12 and 14, and McNealy responding with a pair of birdies on the next two holes. On hole 18, McNealy earned a par to force the match to extra holes. Both players scored par on hole 19, but Scobie parred on the 20th hole to finally win the match.
“Though it was slightly disappointing, I was very, very happy with my first performance on an international stage,” McNealy said. “By making the top 8, I earned an exemption from qualifying for next year’s Junior Amateur at Martis Camp in Tahoe! Very exciting!”
McNealy closed several point deficits in the early rounds to qualify for the top 64, defeating Cameron Young of Scarborough, N.Y., Dylan Wu of Medford, Ore. and China’s Zecheng Dou.
June 13, 2012:
Rising senior Maverick McNealy recently took second place overall at the U.S. Junior Amateur qualifying golf tournament at the Sunnyside Country Club in Fresno. McNealy shot 70-73, earning the final spot in the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship by a single shot, becoming one of 150 golfers in the country younger than 18 to compete in the championship.
The Sunnyside tournament was McNealy’s third attempt at qualifying for the U.S. Junior Amateur. In 100-degree weather, the tournament was especially challenging. “It was very difficult to stay mentally and physically sharp,” he said, “but I think the fact that I was very regimented with nutrition and hydration allowed me to make up a lot of ground on the second round.”
Part of the secret to McNealy’s recent success has been his steady training routine. “I practice and play every day of the summer, and have a very regimented pre-tournament routine. I do a workout two days before a tournament, but none the day of or day before. I get to the course 50 minutes before my tee time, and warm up on the range (I hit 13 wedges, 13 irons and 13 woods), then I chip and hit sand shots for about five minutes, and then putt until I head to the first tee,” he said.
McNealy will compete in the California State Amateur tournament in late June before heading to the U.S. Junior Amateur in July. He hopes one day to play division 1 golf in college.
Harker’s summer sports performance program has provided an excellent opportunity for summer students to improve their overall athleticism.
“What we’re doing is taking a very fundamental approach to sports performance. It doesn’t really matter what sport you play as long as it’s a ground-based sport,” said Ron Forbes, Harker’s director of sports performance, who heads up the six-week program. Students began by working balance, footwork, agility and other core aspects of ground-based sports. More advanced concepts such as plyometrics, which incorporate explosive movement, are introduced later. “So that no matter what sport you play, you’re going to be a better athlete at the end of the summer,” Forbes added.
Students will also work on resistive sprinting, which involves being tied to an object while sprinting. “It’s just enough resistance so that you can practice full-speed mechanics without actually going full speed,” Forbes said. “So it’s a safer way to do full speed mechanics, so you’re not worried about kids pulling hamstrings and that sort of thing.”
Another more advanced exercise is overspeed sprinting, comparable to running downhill. Forbes said these exercises teach students “the neuromuscular firing patterns to make their legs cycle faster, so it helps with speed development.”
The program also works on core strength exercises such as pushups and situps. Incoming Harker student Oisin Coveney, who will start grade 9 in the fall, found this part of the program to be his favorite. “You have to switch between each exercise very quickly without much of a break, and it’s actually more enjoyable because I know I’m getting better,” he said.
Coveney joined the program because he wanted to work on his speed and agility as a soccer player. “I’m not the fastest person on the field, and I’d like to step that up,” he said.
Forbes noted that many of the sports performance program’s students are in grades 6-8. To this he credits the program’s emphasis on developing overall athletes and not just preparing them for an upcoming season. “Most of these kids now, we’re not getting them ready for the season, we’re helping develop them into athletes at a younger age,” he said.
Other students, such as Naomi Molin, grade 9, simply enjoy the opportunity to get out and exercise in the summer weather: “It’s just a neat way to get out and do something active over the summer when it’s so easy to just stay inside and watch TV all day.”