Sports Update

Submitted by Miriam Rotman
These past few days have been very busy on the sports front -

X-Country - the entire Gunn XC team traveled to Central Park (Santa Clara)
to compete against all their local rivals on a short and fast 2.3 mile
course. The Gunn girls ran very well and placed 3rd overall out of 14 teams.
Sarah Robinson once again ran to a strong victory winning the race in a time
of 13:41. The boys ran well as a group and placed 5th out of 14 teams with
Andrew Prior taking 2nd overall in a time of 11:35. Over 60 Gunn titans
participated in the event and the team atmosphere was great.

Last weekend the Gunn cross country team traveled to Angel's Camp,
California to compete in the Bret Harte Invitational. Catherine Kim and
Tanvi Dharap earned medals in the Frosh girl's race placing 13th and 15th
respectively. David Lee-Heidenreich also earned a medal by placing 7th in
the Frosh boys race. Andrew Bent, Thomas Rasmussen and Antonio Puglisi ran
well in the boy's sophomore race with Bent placing 2nd. In a surprisingly
similar fashion upstart Eliana Ribbe took 2nd place in the girl's sophomore
race. The Varsity boys and girls ran extremely well. Sarah Robinson ran to
an easy win in a time of 19:24. Christine Prior followed with a 9th place
finish in 21:35. The boys as a group were team champions. Andrew Prior
nearly won the boys race and was runner-up by only 2 seconds in 16:46. Peter
Chen, Michael Underwood, Shaun Yee, and Rishi Agarwal, rounded up the
varsity top five by placing 14th, 16th, 22nd, and 37th respectively.
Finally, Tommy Kidder, and Gabe Crane completed the varsity seven by placing
61st and 81st.

Football - Gunn rolled past The Harker School-San Jose 47-6 in the SCVAL El
Camino Division opener for both teams Friday night. Visiting Harker made its
first appearance in the SCVAL. The rude introduction came via superb
offensive line play from the Titans, a punishing ground game, speed at the
edges and a dominant defense.

JJ Strnad was unstoppable, racking up 169 yards and four touchdowns in just
eight carries. Marcus Moreno-Ramos added 79 yards and a TD on eight carries.
"We needed the win and we gained some confidence," Gunn coach Dan Navarro said. "The line did well. JJ is a big, strong kid who runs fast."

"Coach Navarro is turning it around," Harker coach Karriem Stinson said.
"Gunn is aggressive. They played McClymonds, Burlingame and Palo Alto, so
they're battle-tested."
Skyler Larson illustrated a dimension of the Titan ground game by taking an
end-around 35 yards on the first play from scrimmage. Strnad roared around
left end for 32 yards, then went over left guard from eight yards out for
the first score. Larson returned at punt 25 yards down to the Eagles'
11-yard line. After Gunn backed up five yards with a motion penalty, Strnad
scored the second TD on just one play, bolting over right guard from
16-yards away after just 2:17 of play. The Eagles could not bring down the
muscular 6-foot, 210-pound running back Strnad, nor contain his speed around the end or up the middle.

"The line did an unbelievable job blocking," Strnad said. "And our running
back, Marcus Moreno-Ramos, did an amazing job blocking, too. I had a lot of
big holes to run through."

The big men up front for Gunn included Keenan Venuti (6.6), Jeff Suri, Aryeh
Furman, Robert Kato, Malik Gil and Nabil Hamade.

On the first play of the 2nd period, Gunn quarterback Andre Guzman connected with Hamade. The Titan tight end overpowered one would-be tackler, picked up a beautiful downfield block from Scott Ziebelman, to run away for a 49-yard score.

Defensive back Sean Lydster was next to find the end zone for Gunn. "The
pass was tipped by JJ Strnad," Lydster said. "I went for the ball and I
caught it just above the ground. There were several good blocks and I ran
down the sideline and scored."

Lydster's 62-yard return put Gunn on top 27-0. Strnad salted the game away
with two more touchdowns later in the period, one from 35 yards and another
from 64 yards. At halftime, the scoreboard read 41-0 and the only question
was whether students at these two strong academic-oriented schools would
leave early to get in some last-minute studying for today's SAT testing.

Way to go Titans!!

Waterpolo - Paced by Michael Znidarsic's 4 goals, the Titans visited Monta
Vista this week and came away with their 3rd league win. Good team defense
as well as 2 goals each from Tyler Wilson and Coby Wayne contributed to the
win. Unfortunately the team also lost to Paly 12-10 this week but we wish
them success in their upcoming matches.

Volleyball - The lady Titans def. Monta Vista-Cupertino 25-22, 25-21, 18-25,
25-22. Julia Maggioncalda led the host Titans with 13 kills in the SCVAL De
Anza Division match. Earlier this week the Gunn team lost to los Altos in 3
sets.