Update: April 23, 2014
On a windy and cold afternoon at Boulder Ridge Country Club, the boys golf team outdueled four time defending league champion Menlo by one stroke 208-209 to win its first ever title. After the first two pairings, the Eagles were up by seven strokes. On the last hole, Menlo’s William Hsieh, playing on this home course, lips out the par 4 9th. Then Knight senior and medalist Jordan Stone, who sunk 10-15 footers all day long, lips out another putt, finishing with a remarkable 11 putts for the round. Not to be outdone, in front of the gallery, our own Mr. Clutch, Freshman Avi Khemani calmly sank an eight footer for the one shot victory. Freshman Sandip Nirmel, who is playing his best golf of late, led the Eagles with a 3 over par 39. Nirmel earned his first Harker medalist honors last week at Shoreline against Pinewood. Junior Shrish Dwivedi chipped in with a 40, followed by Khemani’s 41, Ryan Vaughan’s 42 and Jonathan Lee’s 46 to assist in the victory. After hitting a ball out of bounds on his first tee shot on the par 4 fourth hole, Jonathan stuck a 220 yard, blind shot, into the middle of the green to save a remarkable double. The Eagles secure first place in the WBAL with a 9-1 record. This is a culmination of 15 weeks of tremendous amount of hard work, time, and effort by all eight of these gentlemen. Please congratulate Shrish Dwivedi, Dakota McNealy, Nikhil Reddy, Ryan Vaughan, Sandip Nirmel, Avi Khemani, Zarek Drozda and Jonathan Lee on this championship run! Each and every one of them played their role in making this dream a reality and absolutely gave it their all. We can’t be more proud. The team’s next competition will be at League Finals next Wednesday. Go Eagles!!!!
April 22, 2014 Golf
The Eagles are off to their best start ever, even after dropping a contest to rival Sacred Heart Prep by just three shots, 186-189. The Eagles are tied for first place in the WBAL with an 8-1 record. In the close loss, sophomore Dakota McNealy led all other golfers with an even par 33.
At the Champions Invitational in Palm Springs earlier this month, the team placed 22nd out of 40 schools in a crowded field that included teams from Texas, Nevada, Washington and Canada. They have a huge showdown with Menlo today!
Track and Field
The Eagles competed in their second league meet, with senior shot putter Nithya Vemireddy setting a school record. The day also was filled with personal bests. In addition to Vemireddy’s new record, junior shot putter Julia Wang and sophomore Mehul Khetrapal set personal bests in the 400m. Senior Ravi Bhandia, junior Matt Bloch, sophomore Jonathan Hochberg, freshman Davis Howard and senior Rohan Kapatkar had personal bests in throws. The boys went 1-2-3-4 in the high-jump, led by senior Wei Wei Buchsteiner with a school record of 5’2″!
Senior Claudia Tischler and sophomore Alex Dellar ran 1-2 in the 800m, both with season bests, and junior Allen Huang’s personal best in the 100m was the best Eagle mark on of the year! Freshman Niki Iyer placed second in the 3200m run, breaking her old school record at the CCS Top 8 Invitational with a time of 10:57.39 and edging out the third-place finisher in the final 100m. Then, at the San Mateo Bearcat Invitational, Vemireddy and Wang took fifth and sixth place in the discus, with Vemireddy’s personal best throw just 8 inches shy of the school record set last year by Wang. Vemireddy also took sixth in the shot put, while seniors Sean Nachnani, Arjun Kumar, Krish Sanghi and Nishaant Murali set personal bests in the discus. Kumar equaled his personal best 39’9” to take eighth place in the shot put.
Lacrosse
The varsity lacrosse team roared back against Sacred Heart Prep but ultimately fell short, losing 12-9 despite four goals from junior Hannah Bollar, three goals from senior Mary Liu, two goals from senior Mabel Luo and 17 saves from senior goalie Christine Lee. The girls bounced back by trouncing York School 14-3 behind four goals from freshman Sarah Baz, three from Liu, two from Luo and one apiece from sophomores Shreya Sunkara and Natasha Mayor, Bollar, freshman Taylor Iantosca and Lee. The girls are now 4-9 overall, and will celebrate their senior day on May 6 when they bid farewell to seniors Alicia Clark, Nikkan Ghosh, Lee, Liu, Luo, Maya Madhavan and Brinda Perumal.
Tennis
The boys varsity squad beat Pinewood and Crystal Springs last week. Their match against Crystal Springs was a tense and heated fight for second place, and the boys prevailed 4-3. This week is a busy one for the team, with four matches! The team will send off senior Kevin Xue at senior day on April 25.
Baseball
The boys crushed Pescadero 11-1 over the break for their second victory of the year. Freshman Nic Bean went 4-4 with a two-run homerun. Sophomore Dalton Forbes had two hits with a triple and an RBI. Freshman Kedar Gupta had two hits, a triple and two RBIs. Senior Varun Kamat pitched a complete game, allowing just one run and three hits while striking out 13 across four innings. The boys play three times this week and host a senior day for Kamat on May 8.
Softball
The Eagles lost to Mercy-Burlingame last week despite hits from juniors Alisa Wakita and Vivian Isenberg. They’ll be back in action today at Blackford against Castilleja.
Volleyball
The boys won the bronze bracket at the Bellarmine Tournament after defeating Cathedral of LA and Nevada Union. They went 3-3 overall at the tournament. Against their league competitors Homestead, they boys fell, dropping their record to 13-7 overall and 4-3 in league. Tonight, they head to Blackford at 6:45 p.m. for a game against Los Gatos. The boys’ senior day is on May 9, where they will send off seniors Samir Chaudhry, Will Deng, Gaurav Kumar, Huck Vaughan, Jithin Vellian, Sean Youn and Andrew Zhu.
Swimming
You can catch the swim team’s senior day on Wednesday at 4 p.m. against rival Sacred Heart Prep. Say goodbye to seniors Brian Tuan, Kenneth Zhang, Manon Audebert and Kimberly Ma.