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Palo Alto finished atop the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League in both boys’ and girls’ cross country this season, each winning their respective 5,000-meter race of the final competition of the season, held at Sunnyvale Baylands.
In nonleague girls’ tennis, visiting Castilleja surprised Sacred Heart Prep, 4-3, and Gunn fell to Cupertino, 4-3.
In West Catholic Athletic League boys water polo, host Menlo School topped Mitty, 20-6.
At Sunnyvale, Monta Vista senior Rohun Agrawal won the individual title, racing 15:35.9. Palo Alto freshman Grant Morgenfeld ran second in 16:05.1.
Morgenfeld won his previous four SCVAL races and finishing second to Agrawal, who will compete in college in the fall, remains an accomplishment.
As for the team aspect, it was no contest. Paly’s top seven runners all finished among the top 11 in the race and earned a 20-76 victory over Los Gatos.
Gunn ran with an incomplete in its race and its four runners all finished among the top 14.
Paly senior David Evans ran third in 16:26.2. He was followed by Alex Gao, who was fourth in 16:44.5, Aleksei Seletskiy, who was fifth in 16:47.3, and Mateo Fesslmeier, who was sixth in 16:48.8. James Miller (10th in 17:06.2) and Kenji Tella (11th in 17:09.4) completed the squad.
Joshua Gehring was Gunn’s top runner, finishing sixth in 16:54.6 in a race won by Mountain View, Paly’s closest rival during the regular season.
Gunn’s Gal Rivlin followed in 12th (18:08.7), with freshman Jake Seley (18:14.8) in 13th and Noah Milivojevic (18:15.1) in 14th.
Gunn and Palo Alto competed in the same girls’ race. The Vikings outpaced Los Gatos by a 29-55 margin. The Titans were incomplete.
Palo Alto sophomore Elizabeth Fetter won the race by just over 23 seconds. She was timed in 18:17.5, with sophomore teammate Hillary Studdert placing second in 18:40.9.
Senior Katherine Cheng was Paly’s next runner, finishing seventh in 20:09.5. Emily Defide (10th in 20:37.2) and Hailey Hwang (11th in 20:47.9) completed the scoring.
Girls tennis
It’s been more than seven years since Castilleja (2-2) beat Sacred Heart Prep in a tennis match and it took clutch performances by a freshman and senior to complete the come-from-behind victory.
SHP (3-4) was ahead 3-2 with freshman Julia Zeitlin dueling at No. 1 singles and senior Mariel Gunadi at No. 4 singles, the last two Casti players standing.
Zeitlin completed her straight set victory over Natalie Dias to tie the score. Gunadi and Alyssa Turrene were locked in a tiebreaker, with both players needing to fight off match points before Gunadi closed it out, 12-10.
“We are fired up about this win,” Castilleja coach Cassie Peters said. “It was a terrific win for Julia and an amazing team effort.”
Gunn, which won seven straight matches at one point, suffered its second 4-3 setback in as many days. The Titans finished their season 11-4, 9-2 in SCVAL play.
Boys’ water polo
Connor MacMitchell scored seven goals as Menlo took charge early, building a 14-3 advantage by halftime and taking a 17-3 lead into the final quarter.
Greg Hilderbrand added five goals for Menlo (5-1), which rebounded from its first loss of the season the previous day.
Tommy Kiesling and Jack Murad each added a pair of goals and Zayd Mahmoud recorded 15 saves in goal.
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Grant Morgenfeld placed second and was Paly’s top runner on Thursday. Photo courtesy of Malcolm Slaney. -
Alexandra Wong (84) and Paige Yun competed for Gunn. Photo courtesy of Malcolm Slaney. -
The top four finishers ran as a group through much of the race. From left to right: Mircea Kippes (Wilcox), Sylvana Northrop (Monta Vista), Elizabeth Fetter (Palo Alto) and Hillary Studdert (Palo Alto). Photo courtesy of Malcolm Slaney. -
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