Schools
Lawson Sports Gala: A Celebration of After School Sports
A time for school sports teams to reunite, one last time!
Sam H. Lawson Middle School held its Sports Gala on May 19, 2011. Each of the school's league teams gathered in turn to be introduced on stage, and the coaches announced their player awards.
The school year is split into five sports seasons, with teams composed of various permutations of girls/boys/co-ed, and 6th plus 7th grade/8th grade/C. (A "C" team is one composed of 6th, 7th, 8th graders who are all under 5-feet 3-inches tall.) The sports represented, and collection of MVPs and awards given for each included:
Girls Softball: Casey Bisted, Janaye Sakkas, Maria Sam, Leilani Loo, Kaela Adams-Engstrom
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Boys Volleyball: Curtis Lyon, Andrew Spillar, Austen Lowitz, George Mathen, Alex Young, Brendan Lin.
Cross-Country: Rohan Choudhury, Waylen Fu, Geoffrey Tourette, Jenny Xu, Tanya Chaudhary, April Schindler.
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Wrestling: Nick Yee, Audie Batsford, Jake Reichenberger.
Girls Volleyball: Natasha Kosowicz, Maddie Chen, May Liew, Abbey Bakker, Janaye Sakkas.
Boys Soccer: Jimmy Wong, Jake Reichenberger.
Girls Basketball: Janaye Sakkas, Leilani Loo, Terese Batingana
Boys Basketball: Justin Yen, Chaitanya Pedada, Andrew Spillar
Girls Soccer: Meera Trisal, Janaye Sakkas, Niteesha Betini, Leilani Loo, Courtney Chan, Ori Hazan.
Tennis: Abhishek Moturu, George Mathen, Jay Lee, Kaholi Kiyonami, Roshini Malempati, Rizwanulla Mohammed, Illina Yang, Paven Gollapalli, Kartik Vats, Ethan Shen, Preetham Gujjulla.
Track and Field: Jenny Xu, Jade Harrison, Maya Barboza, Rohan Choudhury, Ethan Chee, Anthony Barthell, Janaye Sakkas, Leilani Loo, Danielle Mains, Vinh La, William Hao, Rehan Chaudhury.
Jay Lawson Award for Outstanding Dedication to Athletics: Janaye Sakkas
The festive night concluded with a raffle including prizes such as tickets for Sharks and Giants games.
Lawson school is proud of its growing sports program and looks forward to continuing and adding to its intra-mural sports program to augment its intermural league sports. This year, the PTA and Sports Boosters gifted a set of ten ping-pong tables that are used in the physical educational program and are sure to spark an additional competitive intramural sport to the mix for next year!
Jeremy Gibbons and Jeren Jensen, the school's Athletic Directors, also helped to increase the number of student spectators at home games this year by awarding "Maroon Mob" T-shirts to students who showed up to cheer for Lawson athletes (maroon being one of the school colors.)
In Wes Morse's biography of Sam Lawson, he says, "Perhaps the best way to honor Sam at the school that bears his name is to have the finest physical educational program possible. That would have meant a lot to him." Lawson Middle School is well on its way in striving towards that goal.
Congratulations to all the Lawson Athletes for a great year of school sports!
Go Lawson Lightning!
--Contributed by Alysa Sakkas (Full disclosure: She's the leader of Cupertino Patch's Moms Council and the mother of Janaye Sakkas, winner of the Jay Lawson Award.)
