The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Photograph by George Sakkestad Homestead's Ali Beheshti blasts over for a second-period touchdown, but the Mustangs dropped a tough 21-14 decision to Los Gatos. Ricketts runs to another win Martinez TD lifts Cupertino to win By DICK SPARRER There have been two Lynbrook Invitational cross country meets this fall, a nonscoring race in September and a regular scoring event in October. But scoring or nonscoring, September or October--it didn't matter much to Anne Ricketts of Saratoga. She won both of them. Ricketts ran to a win last September in Lynbrook's non-scoring meet, and the Saratoga star ran to another win last week when cross country runners from the area returned to the Lynbrook campus for a second attempt on the 2.1-mile course. Ricketts covered the distance in 13:05 to win the event in September, and she wasn't much off that pace last week when she ran 13:09 to easily win the girls division at Lynbrook. Ricketts was first, with Sueh-Han Liew of Fremont a distant second at 13:42. Laura Kniskern of Prospect was third in 13:50 to lead the Panthers to the team title in the scoring event. Over on the boys side, Alex Daniels of Saratoga was second overall in 11:13 to lead the Falcons to the team championship. Saratoga ran up a low 37 points to finish well ahead of Santa Clara (57) and Monta Vista (78). Fremont (99) was fourth, with host Lynbrook (108) fifth and Westmont (120) sixth. Daniels was second for the Falcons, with Alex Shoor fourth in 11:25 and Jake Christopherson fifth in 11:26. Westmont's Tasin Fetto was sixth in 11:26, with Doug Cameron of Fremont seventh in 11:27, Aman Sirohi of Lynbrook eighth in 11:28 and Eric Fontes of Fremont ninth in 11:29. Kniskern led the Prospect girls to a team title with her third-place finish. Kristi Cangiamilla was seventh in 14:00, with Elizabeth Giles eighth in 14:12 and Alison Prehn 10th in 14:19. Lauren Adams of Monta Vista finished fourth in 13:54 to lead the Matadors to a second-place finish behind Prospect. Sarah Blake-Burke was fifth in 13:55, with Yvonne Bailey ninth in 14:18 for the Mats. Elsewhere in dual-meet action, Homestead lost a 20-39 nonleague decision to Gunn despite a second-place finish by Matt Hovik. The Homestead star covered the 2.17-mile course at Gunn in 11:03. Pioneers win thriller Mike Runfola threw for one touchdown and ran for another, but it was an 81-yard kickoff return by A.J. Martinez that lifted the Cupertino football team to a thrilling 21-20 win over Gunn last Friday night. Gunn had taken the lead with a pair of first-period touchdowns, but Cupertino cut away at that advantage with three TDs in the second quarter. Runfola tossed a 65-yard scoring pass to Mitch Andrade to get the Pioneers on the scoreboard, then Runfola ran 10 yards for a touchdown of his own. Gunn scored in the second period to take a 20-14 lead, but Martinez turned that around in a hurry. He returned the Titans' kickoff 81 yards for a touchdown to tie the game. John Ho kicked his thirdstraight extra point to break the deadlock, and the Pioneers went in leading 21-20 at intermission. As it turned out, that was the final score, as the clubs played a scoreless second half. The win helped the Pioneers improve to 3-2 in the El Camino Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. The Pioneers are 3-5 for the year. In another El Camino Division game, Lynbrook lost 48-28 to Los Altos to slip to 0-4 in league play and 3-5 for the year. Vik Rajagopal pulled down a couple of touchdown passes for the Vikings. Over in the De Anza Division, Monta Vista was blanked 21-0 by Palo Alto and Homestead lost a tight 21-14 nod to Los Gatos. Huang leads Mats Wendy Huang knocked in three goals to lead the Monta Vista girls field hockey team to a 6-2 win over San Jose Academy in the Santa Teresa Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League. Kim Rodriguez buried two goals and added an assist in the win, and Aimee Wing also scored. Amy Kreft had two assists for the Mats. Monta Vista is now 6-1-1 in division play and 7-2-2 for the year. Homestead, meanwhile, won a pair of matches last week in the Santa Teresa Division. The Mustangs edged Los Altos 1-0 on a second-half goal by Julie Speckels. Speckels scored again, this time off a Michelle Wald assist, to lead the Mustangs to a 2-0 win over San Jose Academy. Homestead is now 5-2-2 in division play. Cupertino lost in its only league match last week. The Pioneers fell 4-0 to Willow Glen to slip to 1-5-3 in the Santa Teresa Division. The Pioneers battled back with a 1-0 nonleague win over University of San Francisco, though. Stephanie French scored Cupertino's lone goal off an assist from Kellie Utsumi. In other local action, Lynbrook won twice in the Mt. Hamilton Division of the BVAL. Sara Hohenshelt scored off a Chrissy Bailey assist to lift the Vikings to a tight 1-0 win over Prospect. Later in the week, Hohenshelt scored two goals and added an assist in a lopsided 6-0 win over Leigh. Bailey and Pooja Mehta each had a goal and an assist, and Divya Chowdary and Heather Lamb also scored goals. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, November 4, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.