Sports

Senior pitcher Blake Paisley will graduate in June, but he doesn’t plan on leaving his baseball career behind. Paisley plans to play for Willamette University in Salem, Ore.

“I really like the coach up there since he knows a lot about baseball,” said Paisley. “I am also getting a 40 percent scholarship, which is always good.”

The boys’ tennis team failed to avoid repeating history when the Falcons lost to Sacred Heart Prep in the CCS finals on May 9. They previously lost to Sacred Heart in the ‘06 CCS finals.

“They played a lot better, and I think they really wanted to win,” said sophomore No. 2 doubles player Aditya Joshi. “We were too excited about beating Menlo, and we thought we’d [pull off a] win already against Sacred Heart, so we weren’t as focused.”

If all goes according to plan, within five years senior Kent Johnson will be living by the beach and making a very comfortable living from his professional beach volleyball career.

Johnson hopes to join the American Volleyball Program centered around beach volleyball that travels around North and South America, is the main beach volleyball circuit in the United States that represents professional athletes such as Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor.

As eight runners approach the starting line for the 400m run, seven hunch down to get in their blocks while one stays upright.

Some may see this as a surefire way to lose, yet senior Mike Marshall is ranked third in CCS in the 400m with an amazing time of 49.48.

After a win over Los Gatos on April 2, the Falcons find themselves in second place in the De Anza league and in a good position for CCS, which begins May 6. Despite several injured players, the team has come out strong in the second half of their season, with better teamwork and more wins. Although they suffered a disappointing loss in the Charger Classic tournament in mid-April, the SHS team rallied to beat Mountain View the following week and kept their second-place ranking in the league.

If the boys’ tennis team had difficulties after its first loss against Gunn, the Falcons certainly overcame them in their first CCS match, where they easily defeated Aptos 6-1 on May 2.

After 12 years of competitive swimming , senior Hayes Hyde has chosen to take her sport to the college level. After being offered a position on the swimming team at Yale University, Hyde has accepted the recruitment and plans to swim all four years of college.

Nicole Sabes has been an asset to Saratoga High athletics for the past four years, participating on the varsity softball, soccer, field hockey and track teams. But with a looming graduation date, the superstar is getting ready to fly away from the Falcon nest and run for University of California Santa Barbara on the school’s prestigious track team.

Senior Ryan Hinshaw is one of the few athletes who have been on varsity teams since freshman year. He has gone above the norm, becoming one of Saratoga’s top swimmers.

He is ranked 11th nationally in the 1500m freestyle swim with a time of 16:07.23, a ranking he earned at the Speedo Junior Nationals last August. As a result of his amazing skill in long distance swimming, he has signed with Indiana University for next year.

Saratoga lost three consecutive games over the past two weeks against Monta Vista, Wilcox and Gunn, three of the league’s strongest teams. All three games were lost by a score of 13 – 17.

“We were really close [against Monta Vista and Wilcox],” said senior varsity girls’ doubles player Laura Lin. “If we had just won one more varsity game, we would have come out on top.”