Eighteen freshmen, eleven sophomores, and seven juniors completed their first week of campaigning today with speeches before third period. Voting for class officers took place during third period, and the officers and run-off candidates will be announced today at 4:00 P.M. at the Tiger Patio.

Candidates for Class Office:

Sophomore President
Sam Anuakpado
Chris Koo
Jasmine Lee

Sophomore Vice President
Nina Acebo
Amy Chong
Sunshine (Shine) Cho
Kennedy Gordon
Darren Tom

Sophomore Secretary
Brian Faung
Karen Hsueh
Hermes Ip
Jenny Luo
Janna Shim
Isabella Sun

Sophomore Treasurer
Sharon Bae
Kendall Chang
Alex Kim
Lenn Kushigemachi

Junior President
Josh Ma
Siria Medina

Junior Vice President
Ted Kim
Logan Wong
Jeffrey Xiong

Junior Secretary
Karen Quan
Jake Sim
Kelvin Shang
Brennan Yu

Junior Treasurer
Patricia San Pedro
Andrea Seet

Senior President
Matthew Nang
Abe Song

Senior Vice President
Jessica Ng

Senior Secretary
Eliot Kim
Anne Toffoli

Senior Treasurer
Evelyn Faung
Evelyn Lee

College Day took over the SPHS Tiger Patio on Friday, May 18. Graduating seniors wore shirts displaying their college emblems and chalked the patio with school names and colors.

A detailed list of seniors’ college plans will be in Tiger‘s June issue.

Photos by Matt Winkel and Katie Whitworth

Unfortunately for the Tigers, the night ended in defeat. Despite coming out strong and taking the first game 31-29, the Tigers dropped the next three games to the Scorpions 25-21, 25-10, 25-17.

“They [Camarillo] were a good team and tough to beat, which was expected, but in the end we just didn’t play as well as we could have,” said South Pasadena head coach Ben Diaz. “We weren’t on the top of our game. We didn’t come out with the same energy we had in our previous matches, and they [Camarillo] took advantage of it.”

This loss ended the Tigers’ longest postseason run in seven years. Previously, South Pasadena was able to defeat the Gahr Gladiators 3-0, and took an exciting 3-1 home win against the fourth-seeded Claremont Wolfpack. However, the boys still fell short of their biggest goal—winning CIF.

“It’s awful that we weren’t able to continue and go farther into CIF—I feel like we were capable of going to the finals. But we were still able to win league and make it this far, which is pretty amazing,” said sophomore Andrew Rudchenko. “It was an awesome experience to be a part of this team. We did great and should be proud of what we accomplished.”

The Camarillo match was the last time seniors Thomas Adamson, Ben Hillman, Alireza Jabalameli, Tim Szu, Samudra Thio, and Nick Hudson got to put on the South Pasadena jersey, as their high school volleyball careers came to a collective end.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re losing a few of our key guys after this year; they were great players and I’m lucky I had the opportunity to coach them,” said Diaz. “We did well this year and achieved a lot. Now it’s time to work hard with the younger guys so we can come out and do it again next year.”

SPHS’s girls track team is the strongest it’s been in years, and the Tigers proved it on Saturday at CIF Division 3 Prelims in Costa Mesa.

Seven South Pas girls qualified for CIF finals in individual events, along with both the 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams. Freshman phenom Nina Acebo achieved the highest placing of any South Pas athlete, running the fastest time of the meet in the 100-meter hurdles; she also qualified in the 300-meter hurdles, long jump, and 4×100. Sophomore Kamia Willis also qualified in four events, and will compete on Saturday in the 200, 400, 4×100, and 4×400. Freshman Jazmin Jackmon proved her potential by qualifying in the 200, 4×100, and long jump.

“I definitely think we have a chance of making it even further than finals,” said junior Anika Renken, a member of the 4×400. “We’ve been building up to this all season, and based on how we ran on Saturday, [the CIF Masters meet] is a pretty realistic goal for us.”

Renken also competed in the 800, but did not qualify for finals.

The girls’ success in CIF came after record-breaking performances at Rio Hondo League Finals, held on May 5. The girls, already undefeated in dual-meet competition, took seven league championships in both individual and relay events. Willis led the way by setting three new league records, one individually in the 400 and two with teammates in the 4×100 and 4×400 relays. Fellow sophomore Helena Van Loan dominated the distance races, winning both the 1600 and 3200 and setting the league record with a time of 5:07 in the 1600.

CIF finals will be held on Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.

The 2011-2012 swim season came to an end last Thursday at the Riverside Aquatics Complex. Out of a total of 32 swimmers, only senior captain Sarp Elaziz from the boys’ team qualified to race.

In total, four individual Tiger swimmers and two girls relay teams team competed.

The boys’ single swimmer, Elaziz, competed in both the 100 butterfly and the 100 backstroke.

The top twenty swimmers from each event qualify for finals, but Elaziz missed the mark, placing 22nd in the butterfly with a time of 52.27 and 29th in the backstroke with a time of 55.26. Elaziz holds the school record in the 100 backstroke and came one second short of breaking the record in the 100 butterfly.

“It was a great experience,” Elaziz said. “I just went out there and had a lot of fun. It’s a little disappointing that I didn’t qualify for finals, but this season has been a blast.”

Sophomore Samantha Zavala competed in the 200 freestyle and the 500 freestyle. Zavala finished in a time of 1:59.65 in the 200, placing 35th. She completed the 500 freestyle in 30th place with a time of 5:12.56.
Her younger sister, freshman Sabrina Zavala, finished in 35th place in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:18.06.

“Overall our girls team did very well,” said Samantha Zavala. “We all trained hard this year to meet our goal to become league champs and not share the title. I think our season was a success; we were undefeated the whole season with only a few challenges along the way, especially with San Marino, but I think we all stepped up and took the challenge.”

The 200 freestyle relay, which broke the school record earlier at the Rio Hondo League Championships, finished in a time of 1:43.66.

“CIF was a great experience going and swimming against the top swimmers in Division I. It was a really awesome opportunity and I hope to go again next year,” said sophomore Liza Echeverria, who competed with both relay teams.
The boys team has only four graduating seniors, so the future remains bright, though the team will have to recover from the losses of captains Carlton Lew and Elaziz.

“I am sad it’s over, and we are losing some amazing swimmers, but I’m sure we will gain even more talent next year,” said Zavala.

The post-season tournament was held at the Soule Golf Course in Ojai. The Tigers put together a good team effort with senior captain Harry Yadav leading the way, shooting a 79. Junior Cole Teague and sophomore Henry Sue followed closely behind with an 81 and 82 respectively. Junior Kenneth Rodriguez finished the day with a 92 and senior Zach Lindecamp added a solid 99. Junior Kevin Ryu rounded out the Tiger effort with a 102.

“This year was a great year,” Rodriguez said. “We lost a teammate in the beginning of the season, but we came back strong with everyone stepping up their game. We were able to place second in league and make it to team CIF, which is something we all should be very proud of.”

Yadav was the only golfer from South Pas to qualify for individual CIF competition.

“This season has been pretty good, as our coach didn’t quite expect us to do too well,” Sue said. “I think we really pulled through and well exceeded Coach Goto’s expectations. Team CIF was quite fun, as we had the opportunity to meet and play with some great players from around Southern California. Altogether, it was a fun experience.”

The U16 team, which consisted of SPHS students Leo Parker, Nathan Lam, Jesse Phelps, Raoul Huang Liu, Clem Witherall, as well as players from Poly and St. Francis, went undefeated except for two games, which it forfeited due to a lack of players. The team scored 28 goals through the nine-game season while only allowing five goals. The squad lost 1-0 in a close championship game against Pasadena this past weekend due to a controversial call involving a ricochet off the goalpost which was counted as a goal.

The U19 team, which included students Mathewos Ghebrekristos, Steven Blackwell, Fedor Kossakovski, Max White, Daniel Ruatta, Cody Dunn, Cesco O’Brien, Chris Mejia, Liam Hise, Robert Hernandez, and John Farnworth, had a similar experience. They performed very well when players showed up, but forfeited some games because they could not field enough players.

The team was scheduled to play in a consolation match after falling to Glendale in the semis, but forfeited after only six players showed up. This resulted in an automatic fourth-place finish. Still, members of the team agreed that they all had a rewarding experience nonetheless.

The team attributes the win to the drastically different mentality with which it entered the game.

“We wanted to have a fun, ‘no pressure’ last game,” Trimarchi said.
This mental change proved beneficial for the Tigers and resulted in what Trimarchi believes to be the best game of their season.

SPHS had a team batting average of .486, .224 higher than its season-long batting average. Freshman Andrew Shults, sophomore Alex Chu, sophomore Joey Harmon, junior Johnny Karalis, junior Mark Swanson, and all four seniors scored runs.

The seniors led the team, scoring seven of the thirteen runs and hitting eleven of the team’s eighteen hits. Pinson reached base three times for three runs, Cornford went two for four with one run, and Leach went two for four t with two runs.

Season-long standout player Trimarchi went four for four and accumulated two runs for the Tigers. Trimarchi had the second-highest batting average in the Rio Hondo League, only one hit behind the leading batter.

The seniors also dominated the game in pitching. Leach pitched the first five innings and struck out eleven Spartans. Cornford pitched the following inning. For the seventh and last inning of the seniors’ high school baseball experience, Trimarchi pitched for the first time in his four years on the SPHS team. Despite his lack of experience on the mound, he did not give up any runs.

This win brought the Tigers to a 2-10 record in league.

“We played to our potential and we finally played true Tiger baseball,” said Pinson.

SPHS tied for last place in league with La Cañada.

Head Coach Anthony Chevrier said, “On a win-lose scale it wasn’t a good season, but on learning life lessons it was a great season for everybody.”

To qualify for Finals on Thursday, the players had to defeat two opponents on Wednesday. A few Tigers made it to the second round. Senior Jordan Cheng beat a Monrovia challenger in the first round.

In the second round, however, Chang lost to San Marino standout James Wade by a score of 0-6.

The doubles pairing of junior Scott Richards and senior Phillip Kim defeated a duo from La Cañada in round one. Unfortunately, in round two they fell by a score of 4-8.

Another hard-fought performance came from senior co-captain Eren Cameron, who barely lost by a score of 6-8 in round one to La Cañada’s top singles player.

“It was a tough day but we fought hard,” said Cameron, “I had to leave everything on the court because it was my last day of high school competition.”

The Tigers will say goodbye to seven seniors at graduation this year, five of whom are starters.

However, many of this year’s team leaders were juniors. Next season, head coach Jim Asher will have a much more experienced core of seniors.
The 2013 team will be led by Richards, and fellow juniors Krishna Mocherla and Shyam Senthilkumar.

“This year was a bit of a struggle but it was important to gain experience for next year,” said Richards.

Thursday’s loss to La Cañada was credited to the Trojan offense, which produced ten runs on seventeen hits. South Pasadena’s offense could only muster two hits; senior Melissa Payne and sophomore Chelsea Hong each hit singles. Pitching was a problem for the Tigers, as freshman Cassie Baca pitched   4 1/3 innings and was charged with nine runs.

“I think overall the team has improved tremendously from last year,” said sophomore Katie Donovan. “We have shown the other teams that we are a threat and have become a competing factor in the Rio Hondo League. We definitely have the potential to keep showing them what we have next year.”

The team will have ten returning players next year, seven of which will be seniors. The team will look to junior Cynthia Ream-Garcia offensively, who led the team this year with a .348 average, four home runs, and fifteen RBIs. Pitching-wise, freshman Baca maintained a 3.45 ERA throughout her first year and will return next year as the number-one starter.

Loaded with a promising blend of experience and young talent, the Tigers will look to climb higher in the standings in 2013.