Saratoga News

Sports

Saratoga volleyball team upsets Homestead

By Dick Sparrer

The Homestead girls volleyball team cruising right along in the De Anza Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. And then the Mustangs crashed head first into the Saratoga Falcons.

Saratoga stepped up to knock off the division leaders in four games last week, 25-19, 19-25, 25-14, 25-15. Vivian Wang, a 6-foot senior middle blocker, hammered a match-high 11 kills to the floor to lead the Falcons to the upset victory.

The Mustangs were rolling through the division race with seven straight victories before suffering a road loss at Los Gatos on Oct. 18. Homestead came back to beat Los Altos to improve to 8-1 in the division, still good for first place, but then the Mustangs traveled to Saratoga to face the Falcons.

The clubs split the first two games before Saratoga won the final two to take the match and drop the Mustangs into second place behind Palo Alto.

The upset by the Falcons, who are 4-6 in the division and 13-13 for the year, threw the league title race into a logjam heading into the final week of the regular season. Homestead will face first-place Palo Alto (9-2) on Oct. 30 before wrapping things up against Gunn (5-5, 19-5). Paly, 25-10 for the year, can now win the league title with a victory over the Mustangs this week.

Los Gatos (7-3, 16-11) finishes up with Gunn and Los Altos (0-10) and has all but clinched third place, but the Falcons could claim fourth with a couple of road wins this week. Saratoga visits winless Los Altos on Oct. 30 and finishes with a clash at Mountain View (3-8, 12-14) on Nov. 1. Both matches are slated for 6:45 p.m. starts.

Saratoga lost a non-league decision to Valley Christian (17-9) last week, losing in three straight 25-20, 25-19, 25-23.

Along with Wang, seniors Jackie Gragnola and Erica Baba, juniors Ashley Cole, Kiersten Dolbec and Kate Stewart, Emily Baba, Chelsea Sabella and Nicole Gragnola and freshman Hanna Nielsen make up the Saratoga squad.

In other girls sports action last week, freshman Srinidhi Raghavan won 6-2, 6-0 at No. 1 singles and sophomores Mika Padmanabhan and Annie Lee teamed for a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 1 doubles to place the Saratoga tennis team to a 7-0 win over Los Altos.

Samantha Tsang, Catherine Nguyen, Lindsey Marsh, Shireen Gupta, Jenna Finch, Mary Edman, Carolyn Chen, Amanda Borsum and Nikki Behmaram are other members of the Saratoga squad that boasts a 10-2 record in the De Anza Division and a 13-4 mark overall this season.