Eagle Spring Sports Season Comes to an End

As summer approaches and school comes to an end, spring sports close their seasons with CCS in mind. The views expressed are written with the opinion of The Talon.

Boys Tennis
Although this season has not been the strongest for the boys varsity tennis team, coach Cuong Duong explains that the boys have shown a great deal of effort and improvement.
The team placed seventh out of the 7 teams in its league, with a final record of 1-11. The team did not advance to the CCS championships this year.
While the team may not have performed excellently in comparison to other schools in its league, a number of individual players stood out over the course of the season. Duong noted that senior Neil Swarup played particularly well throughout the season.
“We have a young team, so I’m definitely looking forward to next year because all of our singles players are coming back,” Duong said.

Badminton
The team, including both boys and girls JV and varsity players, is currently in the lower division, with a 7-5 record and is tied for third place.
With regard to CCS, the single players or doubles teams place individually, based on their performance in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic Leagues (SCVALs) which took place last Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
“I am hoping that we will get at least two teams into CCS this year,” coach Stefan Lodge said prior to SCVALs.
His top two choices for CCS were the number one girls doubles team, consisting of junior Diana Chou and freshman Jasmine Xu, and the number one mixed doubles team, made up of senior Albert Chau and junior Tina Chen.

Baseball
Though it is hard to compare any baseball team with the school’s CCS-winning team from last year, this year’s varsity baseball team has proved capable of holding its own despite the loss of key players and lack of seniority.
“You never know in the first part of the season what we’re going to be expecting,”varsity head coach Sandy Wihtol said.
The team currently stands with a 13-12 record, which placed it fourth in the regular season.
At this point, the team is guaranteed a place in CCS. Its first game was last Thursday, May 21 against Leland.
“Once we got going in the season, my goal was to stay in the top four of our league, and also get into CCS, and the team reached both those goals,” Wihtol said.
Golf
This season, the golf team soared to first place, tied with Palo Alto High School. Its overall record for the season was 11-1.
“[The season] went really well,” junior Sean Kawaguchi said. “I thought it was the best…season that we’ve had in the past three years and I really enjoyed it.”
Though the team as a whole did not make it to CCS, Sean advanced to CCS as an indivdual with scores of 89 and 72. Freshman Zach Nicolet advanced to the second round of leagues with scores of 87 and 84.
Despite not being able to compete in CSS as a full team, the team plans to continue improving in the seasons to come.

Swimming and Diving
Both the girls and boys varsity swim teams have gone undefeated all season. League finals were held on Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9. This was the first time that league finals were held at school.
Diving has been stable since its season began. League finals for diving were also held on the same days.
Though both teams performed well, swimming and diving were still lower than expected in the rankings. Several swimmers and divers qualified for CCS, which was held on Friday, May 15 and Saturday, May 16. The following students qualified for CCS: seniors Allegra Tringali, Ryan Hanni, Neal Winterbotham, Tucker Arth, Ben Katzenberg and Jordan Buyesse, juniors Shuya Lou, Scott Stephens, Adlai Katzenberg, James Christiansen-Salameh and Tim Neiman, sophomores Colin Mulcahy, Nina Venuti, Andrew Nguyen and Katie Gonsalves, and freshmen Matthew Orap and Alyssa Waln.
Though nobody won at CCS, Ryan placed second against the fastest swimmers in the nation. He also broke school records in the 50 and 100 freestroke by miles. Scott placed 15th in the 100 backstroke. The team also placed sixth in the 200 free relay and ninth in the 400 free relay. Katie placed 15th in diving.

Track and Field
League finals for track and field were held on Thursday, May 7. The team has prepared to make it to CCS.
Though they have not been placing first in many events, they have placed second and third in most of their league events.
Qualifiers for CCS were juniors Eric Safai, Roy Abousamra and Erin Hicks, sophomores Jordan Hamel and Ben Schneider, and freshman Serina Rye.
The girls had a successful season, and won the majority of their dual meets. While the boys struggled, they were able to isolate good performances.
“The season could be either good or bad, depending on your point of view,” Ben said.

Softball
After winning only two games last year, softball set a higher goal this year and has since accomplished it.
“I feel like we have improved defensively as well as offensively,” sophomore Kelsy Ayers said. “With one of our strengths being our ability to come through with our bats in the last innings and either come from behind or push through for a big lead.”
Softball ended its season with a league record of 6-6 and a 12-11 overall record.