After several months of intense training and competition, spring sports are drawing to a close, but not before leaving behind an impressive record of trials and achievements by this year’s spring athletes.

Track and Field
The varsity track and field teams have been able to score an impressive array of achievements this year, especially individually.

“A lot of our players have been getting personal records, so we’re developing as athletes,” senior Christian Kock said.

Girls varsity was 2-4 until their victory at the division finals on May 1. Girls 4×100 won first place with the help of seniors Martina Mickos and Alyssa Biondi and juniors Katy Kaszubinski and Ivy Gates. Sophomore Julia Kirchhofer placed second in the 400m, and junior Kristen Rimback earned the team several points by winning both the triple and high jump. The boys varsity team has only won one team meet throughout the season.

The past few weeks have been laden with intense competition as the teams prepared for CCS, and the team has since then accumulated some impressive team and individual highlights.

“Long distance did pretty well and varsity girls was good,” senior Charlie Kokernak said.

The girls varsity team recently placed third in the May 9 CCS qualifiers, white boys varsity placed 13th. Martina and Alyssa ran the 4×100 for girls varsity and were among the few on the team who qualified  for the May 21 CCS finals. Sophomore Eric Safai qualified for CCS semifinals with a fifth-place finish in the 1600m. Other qualifiers for the boys include senior Charlie Olaires, who placed fifth in the shot put, and senior Brad Greathouse, who placed fourth in the high jump.

Baseball
After a rough season, the varsity baseball team has emerged at the end of the fray as one of the top four teams in their division and will enter CCS with good chances, according to assistant coach Joe Cusimano. The team will rely mostly on its solid pitching to win and less on power hitting, which has been the team’s primary weakness.

Cusimano predicted that his team’s success at CCS would mainly be based on its strong pitching and defense to cover for its lack of power hitters.

“Our pitching has been dominant,” Cusimano said. “But we have struggled to score runs due to a lack of hitting and hitting for power.”

As a result of inconsistent hitting, the season as a whole was “very inconsistent and streaky,” according to Cusimano.

Nevertheless, the team has scored some impressive victories in the regular season against some of their toughest rivals. Notable highlights included the team’s slim 3-2 victory over the formidable St. Francis early on in the season and their 1-0 win over Homestead, triumphing over their ace pitcher Evan Marshall.

The team has since held its ground well, winning two CCS playoff games against Prospect (4-0) and Los Gatos (6-3). The final playoff games will be the semifinal match against Aptos on May 22 and, should they win, the finals match against either Leigh or Wilcox on May 24.

The team holds an overall record of 21-11 and league record of 8-8. Despite a rough season, it has proven through many impressive games that it is worthy of defending its CCS champion title.

“We started off well, hit a rough patch and then brought it back,” senior Bryan Macomber said. “So overall, I think [the season] was satisfying.”

Golf
Varsity golf finished strong this season with a solid leading record of 9-3 in the league, tying for second place with Palo Alto in their SCVAL division. According to coach David Blasquez, notable players include senior Andrew Kaneshiro and sophomores Davis Beckstead, Tessa The and Sean Kawaguchi. All managed to average under 39 for 9-hole matches at various public courses including Shoreline and La Rinconada. Andrew, however, will unfortunately be unable to participate for the remainder of the season due to a shoulder injury.

Highlights for the team include an impressive fourth place finish at the Aptos High Tournament with 16 participating teams. Two members of the team qualified for the May 7 CCS regional at Rancho Canada and Davis placed 29th individually at CCS regionals. However, because the team did not place in the top three at the event, it did not qualify for the NorCal Team Championships on May 19. Although the team will be losing some seniors, it is coming back strong next year.

Gymnastics
Placing third in league competition, the gymnastics team’s diligent training has made the team a force to be reckoned with. According to Coach Lina Slack, senior Jessica Lundgren serves as the anchor for the varsity team and performs “the most difficult skills” in her routines.

Jessica finished 15th individually in CCS.

Other notable team members include sophomore Eric Hicks, who has made significant progress this year. According to Slack, Erica has been consistently adding layers of difficulty to her training routine, including a no-hand jump and a splits landing on the beam, a new acro series and a dismounting combination. She finished 12th in CCS.