Gunn Connection Extra

Gunn Varsity Sports:

Boy’s Golf:

Gunn lost to Paly for the second time this season finishing the regular season 10-2. Adam Fleischman led Gunn and earned co-medalist honors with a season-best 35. Jack Jaffe followed with a 37 and Anson Cheng a 38. Shai Mohan finished with a 40 and Yilei Yu wrapped up the Titans' scoring with a 43. Gunn

Boys Lacrosse:

Gunn 10 Leland 8 (April 10)

Gunn goals scored by Anatole Colevas (3), Sal Giovannotto (1), Elyas Daadi (3), Aaron Miner (1), Jackson Washura (1), and Hugh Phillips (1).

Girls Lacross:

On Wednesday afternoon Gunn defeated Pioneer by a score of 16-5 in a SCVAL league contest at Pioneer high school. Gunn was led by Juniors Rachael Tsai ( 4 goals and 3 assists ), Anna Dang ( 4 goals ) and Caroline Chou ( 3 goals ). Gunn also got 1 goal from  Senior Anna Cabot, Sophomores Annie Vesey, Yui Sasajima, Jillian King and Freshman Janis Iourovitski.  With this victory Gunn moves to 8-0 in SCVAL play and 11-1 overall. Gunn will play a SCVAL home game against Leland high school on Friday night at Gunn at 7:30.

Softball:

Gunn  second-year softball coach Matt Maltz is enjoying this season. The Titans are 11-3 overall, 6-0 in the SCVAL El Camino Division, though big games loom ahead. “This is a close-knit group,” Maltz said. “We have 12 players with only one senior.” The senior is Maddy Thomas, who mostly plays in the outfield. Iris Chin, who threw a five-inning no-hitter earlier in the season against Cupertino, is the main pitcher for the Titans. Second baseman Natalie Oda, a sophomore, is hitting just under .500.  Sophomore shortstop Emma Wager has been supplying the power, plus handling the glove for the Titans. “Emma is a Division I prospect,” Maltz said.

Maltz has a Division I All-American as his assistant coach in former Stanford star Alissa Haber. “Alissa and I have been friends for eight years,” Maltz said. “I gave her a call and asked her if she wanted to help me coach at Gunn. It’s great for the girls to be around a great player.” The Titans have a key league game at home on Thursday at 4 p.m. against 4-1 Milpitas.

Gunn 2 – Los Gatos 11 (April 18)

Gunn's eight-game winning streak in softball came to an end in an 11-2 non-league loss against a tough Los Gatos squad last Friday. Starting pitcher Iris Chin (Jr.) pitched 4 innings and then had to retire due to an injury. Gunn scored 2 runs in the top of the fourth with Emma Wager starting off the inning with a single. Catherine Schwarzwalder then hit a triple, knocking in Wager to tie the game. Anna Tevanian then singled in Schwarzwalder as the Titans (11-3) took a 2-1 lead. In the bottom of the fourth, Los Gatos loaded the bases after three walks. With two outs, an error on a routine play that would have ended the inning, instead opened the doors for the Wildcats who went on to add five runs in the inning and never looked back. Gunn pitcher Iris Chin pitched four innings and took the loss, only her third in 14 starts. Relief pitcher Kanchan Potter (Jr.) had to deal with many errors made in the field.

Gunn 12, Aragon 8 (April 16)

Getting 10 strikeouts from junior Iris Chin, Gunn won its eighth straight game with a 12-8 non-league softball decision over host Aragon on Wednesday. The Titans got four hits from Emma Wager, who slammed a home run and triple as Gunn pounded out 16 hits. Chin had three hits while improving her pitching record to 11-2. Gunn held a 6-0 lead after the top of the second, but Aragon kept it close. The Dons got to within 7-5 after three, but no closer as the Titans tallied three runs in the fourth. Catherine Schwarzwalder, Natalie Oda, Mariana Torres and Megan Ostrom all had two hits for Gunn. Chin, meanwhile, now has 32 strikeouts in her past three games.

For her pitching success, Iris Chin was named Athlete of the Week. Here is the link to her interview:http://www.paloaltoonline.com/sports/athlete_of_the_week.php?d=2014-04-18

Swimming: April 17 vs Saratoga

The 15 seniors on the Gunn swimming and diving teams went out in style  last Thursday afternoon in our home pool.  The girls won nearly every event against Saratoga, cruising to a 120-63 victory, with Jennifer Campbell and Fiona Hon each winning two individual events while the boys swept their way through the swimming portion of the SCVAL meet. The Senior Meet brought back memories of four years at Gunn for the athletes - “It’s sad, but I’m also really happy to see how far our class has come since freshman year,” Gabrielle Bethke (Sr.) said. “So it’s bittersweet.” Bethke won the 200-yard freestyle and the 100 butterfly against Saratoga, but will likely compete in the 50 and 100 free at the CCS championships. Bethke relished the opportunity to swim different events. “I think it’s really hard to swim your best events at every single meet, so I think it’s fun to mix it up a little bit,” Bethke said. “She’s a technically sound and very diverse swimmer,” coach Mark Hernandez said.

Jennifer Campbell crushed the competition in the 200 individual medley (2:08.08) and the 500 free (5:00.17), two grueling swims. “It’s difficult to imagine someone who is in better condition than she is,” Hernandez said. “And it’s also difficult to imagine someone who swims more technically sound than she does. She’s got it all.”

Fiona Hon led the way in 1-2-3 finishes for the Titan girls in both the 50 and 100 free.

In the 400 medley, Saratoga touched the wall first in the 100 backstroke and the 100 breaststroke, but Gunn claimed its third triumph in the relays when water polo standout Caroline Anderson anchored the 400 free relay. “She’s special,” Hernandez said of Anderson, who has a scholarship to play water polo at Michigan. “She’s a freakish athlete and she just finds ways to go really fast.”

In the boy’s  events Gunn swimmers were a perfect 11-for-11 en route to a 124.50-55.50 win.  The Titans knew they could count on sophomore Daichi Matsuda, who like Campbell tackled the 200 IM and the 500 free. The workload didn’t intimidate Matsuda. “We have nine practices a week and we practice like 22 hours a week, I think,” Matsuda said. “And we do a lot of high-intensity stuff, so that sort of builds our endurance.” “He’s gotten a lot stronger and a lot more aggressive,” Hernandez said of Matsuda.

Not every race was lopsided. Gunn’s Joao Ama beat his opponent by .05 seconds after touching the wall at 1:47.37. It was an even closer call for 200 free relay, which with a time of 1:31.87 claimed first by three hundredths of a second. Ama  also won the 100 free at 49.95, while teammate Luke Chui took first in the 50 free (23.23) and the 100 breast (1:01.58). Trent Tosky was the fastest at the 100 fly (55.74) and in the 100 Kevin Xu out of lane 6 won in 56.02.

The Gunn Titans final scores:

Varsity Girls:  Gunn  120        Saratoga  63

Varsity Boys:  Gunn  124.50   Saratoga  55.50

Track and Field -  San Jose meet

Sarah Robinson (Sr.) led wire-to-wire in the 3,200 meters in a dominant performance, outdistancing the next best finisher by nearly 41 seconds.  Most of the time she ran in complete solitude, cruising around the track on her way to shattering the 27-year-old meet record of 10:26.20, clocking a personal-best 10:16.98, “It feels good to get the meet record,” said Robinson, who will play soccer at Stanford on scholarship. “It was difficult because I didn’t have anybody pushing me, for the most part. The conditions were great. I tried to hit even splits as much as I could.” Gunn sophomore Gillian Meeks ran a fabulous race in the girls 1,600 meters, placing second in 5:00.86. Meeks led most of the race, but was out-kicked by Clare Peabody of Aptos, at the end. “It was a little bit windy, so she could draft off of me,” said Meeks of Peabody. “She had a great kick. I didn’t quite have it. I would have been better for me to be in her spot at the end. I need to get stronger and work on my kick.” Robin Peter (Soph.) was second in the girls 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.51. Gunn also had a fourth place in the girls 300-meter hurdles from Maya Miklos, who ran a 43.37. Adriana Noronha came into the girls discus as the second seed, but failed to establish a fair mark. Noronha bounced back to take third in the shot put with a heave of 37-1.

The Titans placed third as a team with 38 points, one point behind second-place Valley Christian- San Jose. Los Gatos rolled to the team title with 76 points.