By Pete Borello

High School Sports Summary

Boys water polo

Los Altos whipped a rebuilding Gunn team 21-3 Oct. 9 in an SCVAL De Anza Division match. Brian Whitlock led the Eagles with seven goals, followed by Chris Kelsch (6) and Kyle Healy (3).

Los Altos (2-0, 12-5) entered this week ranked fourth in the Central Coast Section, behind only Soquel, Bellarmine and St. Francis. The Eagles play a 4 p.m. game at Cupertino today.

Girls water polo

Homestead blanked Fremont 12-0 Oct. 8 in El Camino Division play. Evelyn Nelson had four goals for the Mustangs (3-3) and Lindsay Tella added three.

Boys Cross country

With first place on the line - and designs on claiming the division title down the line - the Los Altos High girls tennis team eked out a 4-3 win over Lynbrook last week.

The Oct. 8 victory allowed the Eagles to pull even with the visiting Vikings at 5-1 in the SCVAL El Camino Division.

The match came down to No. 2 doubles, where the recently teamed Estelle Hong and Tayler Cox pulled out a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 win.

“I thought they played well under the pressure,” Los Altos coach Cuong Duong said of the duo, playing together for only the third time this season. “In the third set, I told them to get more aggressive - I turned them loose - and they did.”

Los Altos (5-3 overall) also prevailed at the top doubles spot, as Emily Reid and Christina Strong posted a 7-5, 6-4 win. The Eagles’ other wins came from Emily Keenan and Blair Dematteis at No. 3 and 4 singles, respectively. Keenan won 6-1, 6-3, while Dematteis prevailed 6-2, 6-1.

Los Altos meets Lynbrook again on Oct. 31, the regular-season finale for both teams. In the meantime, Duong will try to make sure his Eagles don’t get ahead of themselves.

“If all goes well and we go undefeated (the rest of the way), we’ll win the league,” he said. “But it’s too early to say - we have some tough matches ahead of us and we can’t get too complacent.”

Los Altos hosts Cupertino at 3:30 p.m., Thursday.

The Los Altos boys placed third in the SCVAL Center Meet, which brought together teams from the De Anza and El Camino divisions Oct. 8 in Belmont.

Individually, Taff Dirks paced the Eagles with a third-place finish, running the 2.95-mile Crystal Springs course in 16 minutes, 49 seconds. Teammate Andrew Buysse took 11th with a 17:43.

The Los Altos girls finished ninth, led by Vivian Chiu’s 17th-place effort (21:39).

Mountain View placed 13th among the boys and seventh among the girls, For the boys, Jeff Audett took 27th (18:30). Fara Husain topped the Spartan girls with a 22:37, good for 30th place.