US Sports 2008-09 Wrap-Up

Softball

In a late season win against Mercy San Francisco (10-1) seniors Andy Thomas and Shelby Drabman hit back-to-back home runs! Our softball girls finished their season with a victory on senior day defeating ICA 15- 0. Drabman had 12 strikeouts and we had hits from Thomas and fellow seniors Candace Silva-Martin, Sammi Lowe and Sarah Christiano. The girls ended up 9-13 overall and 7-9 in league. For the third year in a row, Drabman made first team All League, finishing with the best batting average in the league of .540. With five home runs, she tied for first in the league; she also pitched eight wins this year. Thomas, who according to coach Raul Rios, “developed into one of the best, if not the best, shortstops in our league,” made second team All League. Christiano and Silva-Martin received honorable mentions.

Golf

The boys golf team completed its league season with a 7-3 record. The team finished in third place in league finals, narrowly losing to Menlo School by eight points (out of over 400 scored by each team). Juniors James Feng and Yash Khandwala qualified for the CCS tournament in Carmel, where they gained some valuable experience and represented Harker admirably. Congratulations on a great season, boys!

Lacrosse

The girls lacrosse team was 3-15 this year, winning their third game with a 16-9 victory over Woodside High School. The team set a goal for winning at least two games this season and surpassed that goal with previous wins over Notre Dame and an earlier win against Woodside. Coach Dawn Clark was pleased with the tremendous progress the team has made in the past few years.

Leading scorers for the season were Clara Lyashevsky, Gr. 12, with 33 goals and Monisha Appalaraju, Gr. 10, with 18 goals. Michelle Lin, Gr. 12, had 15 goals, Elaine Song, Gr. 11, had 11, and Alyssa Boyle, Gr. 12 and Julia Shim, Gr. 11, each had nine goals. Additional scorers were Priya Thumma, Gr. 12, with three goals; Shreya Nathan, Gr. 10 and juniors Manasa Reddy, Connie Lu and Tamara Kawadri with one goal each.

In goal, Pratusha Erraballi, Gr. 12, had 94 goalie saves and Ruhi Kumbhani, Gr. 10, had 95. Leading defenders at mid-field were Kelly Chen, Gr. 11 and Lu; at low defense were Prachi Sharma, Gr. 12, Carissa Jansen, Gr. 11 and Reddy.

Girls Swimming

The girls ended the season 8-0 in league, and won the league championship meet held at Harker, therefore becoming league champions outright. Dan Molin, athletic director reported, “Despite an early relay team disqualification in Wednesday’s trials, our girls swim team was able to overcome and win their first league championship. The title was in question until the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay.” The girls not only won the event, but smashed the league record by three seconds with a time of 3:46.68.

Harker event winners were: 50 & 100 free – Jessica Khojasteh, Gr. 10; 100 breaststroke – Vivian Wong, Gr. 11; 200 free relay – Katie Siegel, Gr. 9, Tiffany Wong, Gr. 9, V. Wong and Khojasteh; and 400 free relay – Khojasteh, Siegel, V. Wong and Tina Ma, Gr. 11. All were won in league record time except the 100 free. New CCS qualifications were achieved by T. Wong (200 IM and 100 backstroke) and Lucy Cheng, Gr. 9 (200 IM).

Earlier in the season, in a 109-54 defeat of Mills, Khojasteh set a new school record in the 100 backstroke of 1:02.37.

At CCS the girls had their best finish ever, placing tenth with 75 points. Harker was led by Khojasteh, who placed sixth in both the 50 and 100 freestyle, earning All-American honors. Also earning All-American honors was the 200 medley relay team of Siegel, Ma, V. Wong and Khojasteh, which placed eighth. Other points were scored by Siegel placing 11th in the 100 fly (just missing All-American), Wong placing 11th in the 100 breaststroke, Sabrina Paseman, Gr. 12, placing 10th in the 1-meter diving, and the 200 freestyle relay that placed 13th.

Boys Swimming

The boys were 3-1 in league and came in second in the league championship meet. In that meet, event winners were: 50 & 100 free – Cole Davis, Gr. 11; 100 butterfly – Andrew Chin, Gr. 12; 200 IM – Kevin Khojasteh, Gr. 9; 200 free relay – Khojasteh, Chin, Daryl Neubieser, Gr. 9 and Davis. CCS qualifiers were Chin, Davis, Michael Clifford, Gr. 11, Stefan Schwartz, Gr. 11, Darren Syu, Gr. 11, Hassaan Ebrahim, Gr. 10, Khojasteh and Neubieser.

On senior day for Chin, he finished his high school dual meet career winning both of his individual events and both of his relays.

At the CCS match, despite being disqualified in the opening relay of the meet, which was by far their strongest relay, the boys swim team also had its best finish in the history of the team, placing sixth with 104 points. The team was led by Chin, Davis and Khojasteh, all of whom had two top-eight performances and two All-American selections. Chin placed seventh in the 200 IM and, despite an extremely fast field this year, placed fourth in the 100 fly. Davis placed third in the 50 free and fourth in the 100 free. Khojasteh took eighth in the 200 IM, and in the last individual event of the meet, led from the start but got touched out by two tenths of a second in the 100 breaststroke, finishing second. The Harker 200 free relay team of Khojasteh, Chin, Neubieser and Davis also earned All-American honors, placing ninth.

Track and Field

Coach Terrell Davis reported that the track and field team has been making strong improvements in every event this season. For the boys we have had standout performances by Vladimir Sepetov, Gr. 10, Kevin Fu, Gr. 11, Proteek Biswas, Gr. 9, Charles Levine, Gr. 9, Thomas Enzminger, Gr. 11, Kevin Xu, Gr. 12, and the 4 x 400 meter relay team of Biswas, Levine, Bogdan Botcharov, Gr. 11 and Sepetov. On the girls’ side, Kristie Sanchez, Gr. 10, Tara Hansen, Gr. 11, Sonya Chalaka, Gr. 9, Priyanka Mody, Gr. 9 and the crew of lady throwers have laid the foundations for success for many years to come.

In an early season meet at Leland High, several of our runners set personal records in their events. Sepetov set a personal record of 2:05.77 in the 800 meters, Chalaka ran a record 14.02 in the 100 meters, Tanya Rai, Gr. 10, ran the 100 in a personal best 14.62, and Fu ran the 100 in 11.72.

Although they didn’t qualify for CCS, the young Harker track team showed impressive results at the track and field league championship on May 14. Results were highlighted with new personal records for Sanchez (2:33.10) and Sepetov (2:04.46) both in the 800 meter; Biswas (55.18) in the 400 meter, and the 4 x 400 meter relay team (3:44.06).

Qualifiers for the league championships included the girls 4 x 100 meter relay team of Neha Kumar, Gr. 9, Hansen, Rai and Chalaka; Hansen also qualified for the 100 meter high hurdles, as did Sarah Teplitsky, Gr. 11. The 4 x 400 girls team of Rai, Sanchez, Jennifer Dai, Gr. 10 and Chalaka, as well as the boys 4 x 400 team and boys 4 x 100 team of Fu, Botcharov, Angad Randhawa, Gr. 9 and Sean Morgan, Gr. 11, also qualified. In addition, Sanchez qualified in the 800 meter for the girls, and Sepetov in the same event for the boys; Levine and Biswas qualified in the 400 meter; discus qualifiers included Carolyn Kuo, Gr. 12, Enzminger, Patrick Campbell, Gr. 11 and Mark Roh, Gr. 11. Enzminger also participated in the shot put. Longer distance runners Xu and Anne West, Gr. 10, competed in the boys and girls 3,200 meter, respectively, while Xu also ran the 1,600 meter. In addition to her relay teams, Chalaka also jumped in both the long jump and triple jump. Fu also ran the 100 meter for the boys.

This track and field team has a very bright future!

Boys Volleyball

The boys varsity volleyball team finished the season 26-8 overall and 10-2 in league play. In their last regular-season game, the team defeated fourth-ranked Homestead 16-25, 28-26, 25-22, 25-23 in front of a large, supportive senior night crowd. The win earned Harker a second place league finish, a #3 CCS seed, and the right to host a CCS quarterfinal game on May 14 at Blackford vs. Sacred Heart Cathedral. Earlier in the season, they took first place in the silver division at the Aptos Tournament and lost an intense, close match to Leigh in the finals of the Harker Tournament. The team was led by seniors Matt Gehm and Daniel Tien; juniors Chad Gordon, Eugene Huang, Kevin Liu, Jeffrey Tan and sophomore Jacob Chappell. The JV squad made the gold bracket in a tournament for the first time ever at Los Gatos in April.

After the boys volleyball team won their CCS quarterfinal match in front of more than 300 fans at Blackford in three short games of 25-12, 25-12 and 25-21, they moved on to the semifinals against Willow Glen. Unfortunately, they lost that match in four games, 25-17, 22-25, 23- 25, 25-27. Coach and US athletic director Dan Molin stated, “The team would like to thank everyone for their support during the playoffs and the entire season.” He added proudly, “The boys represented our school admirably.”

Boys Tennis

The tennis team finished their regular season with a loss to league champion Menlo School. Since the team graduated seven seniors from last year’s squad, it was a rebuilding year for the program. Despite the loss of last year’s leadership, the boys finished with a 12-6 record, third place in the WBAL, and made a record sixth straight CCS tournament appearance! They lost their first round CCS match to Monta Vista 4-3. Congratulations on a great season.

The team was led this year by captain Aadithya Prakash, Gr. 12 (ranked first in doubles and singles), along with sophomores Karthik Dhore (first in singles), Adarsh Ranganathan (second and third in singles), and senior Harry Schwartz (number one in doubles and singles). Since the team is only losing two seniors this year, look for them to continue as one of the top CCS teams in the future.

Players who participated in the WBAL tournament at Menlo School were Schwartz, Dhore, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Gr. 10 and Ranganathan, and freshmen Sam Gurevich and Nikhil Narayen.

Baseball

The varsity baseball team had big wins against Willow Glen, Evergreen, Cuper tino and Washington. The team has been led by the strong play of seniors Barrett Glasauer and Taylor Martin, who lead the team in most of the offensive categories, and have contributed six pitching victories between them. Junior Greg Plauck has five wins pitching, and a .340 hitting average; junior Stefan Eckhardt has an average over .400 with 19 RBI, plus outstanding defense at shor tstop. Both juniors have been key players this year. Senior Evan Maynard and junior Alex Ringold have been excellent role players in helping Harker to its best season.

The team defeated Crystal Springs 10-3 to secure their first ever co-league championship! The win also gave Harker the automatic league berth to the CCS tournament where they lost their first-round game against a tough Soquel High School team on May 20. All-League recipients were Glasauer, league MVP; Mar tin, Plauck and Eckhardt, first team; Jeff Mandell, Sean Mandell, both Gr. 12, Maynard, and Ringold, second team. Congratulations on a great season!

Berkeley-Bound Shah to Junior Olympics

Ankita Shah, Gr. 12, recently participated in the Junior Olympics (JOs) National Gymnastics competition in Seattle. According to her father, Nilesh Shah, Shah was one of seven to qualify based on her all-around score of 37.2.

She represented region one, which includes the states of California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Region one and five are among the most competitive in the nation. At the event, Shah earned 9.325 on the vault, 8.8 on bars, 8.9 on beam and 9.475 on the floor.

Competing in the JOs was, according to Mr. Shah, “one of her dreams.” Congratulations, and good luck at Cal!

June 18, 2009Tags: Sports