Comic: the college counselors’ candy bowl

If you walk past College Counselor Paul Gallagher’s office, you can see a peculiar line of hot sauces that boasts flavors from Dave’s Gourmet Creamy Garlic Red Pepper to Palo Alto Fire Fighrers Pepper Sauce on the window sill.

Gallagher’s collection of hot sauces began seven years ago with Nueva cafe lunches and a bottle of Tabasco habanero hot sauce.

“I thought that a lot of the food in the cafe could be kicked up a notch,” said Gallagher, who unfailingly brought his Tabasco hot sauce to lunch everyday.

And, while the cafe now provides hot sauce for Gallagher to season his lunches with, this one bottle of Tabasco grew to him now owning over seventy bottles of hot sauce all of which were gifted.

“My favorite part of the collection is that there’s a person associated with these bottles,” Gallagher says, pointing to each bottle and listing its corresponding gifter.

BY Simone G.

Schoolwide Pickleball Tournament

Nueva's

Squash-ing balls across the world Student takes gap year to learn Squash from pros

STORY Sami K. PHOTO Rachel Y.

Only focused on the current point, a racquet slams against the black rubber ball. The crowd cheers “Yalla (“Hurry up” in Arabic)!” The ball ricochets from the front wall back to the same corner of the glass enclosed court, and dies. “Handout, 7-8,” says the referee.

Up next, Rachel Y. ‘26 steps up to serve in the right box of the squash court. Breathe in, step, and serve.

Rachel, who is ranked 11th for girls under 17 (GU17) in the nation, has been playing squash, a racquet sport played with a rubber ball, since she was eight years old. In 2022, Rachel took a gap year between middle and high school to travel to Cairo, Egypt to pursue topnotch squash training. Within the squash community, Egypt is recognized as a mecca for producing top ranking men and women pros.

For Rachel, the training was significantly more intense than her previous experience in the Bay Area.

In addition to cutthroat games and the high level competitive atmosphere, players were required to run two to three hundred cross-court sprints every other day in under 15 minutes.

“Even though many of the kids were a head shorter than me, I would get a run for my money every match,” Rachel said. “Each game was crucial to climbing the ladder of the ranking within our cohort.”

Despite the whirlwind of drills and training, Rachel realized why she continues to play squash.

“I have more passion now from discovering how the smallest changes make a great difference,” Rachel said.

The game is often dubbed as “physical chess” by the squash community, as it requires stamina and creative tactics during fast-paced rallies.

“I really enjoy the mental challenge of the sport because there is a good amount of strategy involved, so I can win even if my opponent is physically stronger,” Rachel said. “One has to be mindful of their grip, swing, stance, movement, and other seemingly small things, but they are oddly tricky.”

Currently, Rachel is back in the Bay Area and trains six days a week at Bay Club Redwood Shores with Charlie Johnson’s Academy. Many of the top juniors in the Bay Area train here, and practice continues to be “grueling, yet fun.”

In order to continue to rise the ranks, Rachel attends the Junior Championship Tour Tournaments (JCT), where the top 32 GU17 compete six times annually. At these competitions, Rachel’s performance in each game could determine whether or not she’d be eliminated from the draw.

At the March JCT, Rachel had one more game to salvage the match that would decide whether she would move on in the draw.

“[At these competitions,] I would try not to focus on if I was going to win or lose because it would probably distract me,” Rachel said. “Even though each point seems small, a disadvantage like that could significantly hurt [my performance].”

Rachel went on to narrowly win the game 17-15 with a short shot that died on the seam between the side wall and floorboards, and won three out of five games to two games to her.

Rachel plans to play squash in college and hopes to one day achieve a legacy of similar valor as her favorite pro: Raneem El Welilly, who was formerly ranked women’s #1 in the world.

“Over time, there’s more structure in how I play: my patience is growing in how I deal out my different shots and I plan to continue practice with a tenacious grip on improvement,” Rachel said.

Bracket challenge fosters competition and spirit in community

Nueva hosts first ever NCAA March Madness tournament bracket challenge open to all

College basketball, spirit points, and a soon-to-be dunk tank intersected at this year’s school-wide March Madness bracket challenge.

On March 14, Anuj T. ’23 challenged the community to submit bracket predictions for the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments on a school-wide ESPN group. The single-elimination men’s and women’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I tournaments, which began on March 16, consisted of 68 teams that competed in seven rounds for a national championship title.

In the end, University of Connecticut (No. four seed) trumped San Diego State University (No. five seed) 76-59 while in the women’s championship, while Louisiana State University (No. three seed) claimed a 102-85 victory against Iowa State (No. two seed).

Sixty five student and faculty participants entered the men’s bracket challenge while 16 entered the women’s.

“The idea came to fruition because I wanted a way to get people more excited about sports while bringing the community together,” Anuj said.

With a stroke of luck, even those with little previous sports knowledge could come out at the top, while any misstep by the most seasoned sports lovers caused their bracket’s accuracy percentage to plummet. And, while the odds of creating the perfect bracket were one in 9.2 quintillion, the challenge aimed to increase school spirit and enthusiasm for college basketball.

“I thought that having that competitive environment at Nueva fostered a lot of camaraderie between students and helped bridge grades together,” Aadit B. ’26 said, who placed twenty-eighth in the men’s bracket. “I put a lot of effort into my bracket, and even though it sucked to not win, it was a great way to bring energy into the month.”

Conversely to Aadit’s strategically calculated predictions, senior Nico B.’s bracket predictions were solely based on ESPN's basic team rundowns; yet, he ultimately tied for first in the women’s bracket.

“I played it safe when picking my teams,” Nico said. “I submitted a bracket because I wanted to beat my friends.”

All participants automatically earned 25 spirit points each for their grade, and competed to win 5000, 2500, and 1000 spirit points for first, second, and third place, respectively.

This year’s top three winners for the men’s bracket challenge were Connor H. ’26 (first place), Logan X. ’25 (second place), and Anuj (third place). In the women’s bracket, Anuj tied with Nico for first place and Director of Alumni Relations Diana Chamorro took third.

For the bottom three brackets, students Alexa T. ’23, Aura M. ’24, Alaric L. ’25, Giulia

K. ’23, Mira H. ’25, and Nathan L. ’23 all spun a wheel of punishments during an allschool spirit assembly on April 5. Some of the punishments included getting dunked in a dunk tank, dressing up as Flo from Progressive, or having faculty members put 20 temporary glow-in-the-dark tattoos on you.

“I think this was a huge success,” Anuj said. “I hope that even after I graduate, this will continue to be an annual tradition to cement my legacy.”

Student-organized upper school ping pong tournament capitalizes on sport's growing popularity.

March Madness top moments

Four favorite moments from this year's NCAA tournaments

STORY Serena S. PHOTOS USA Today, NCAA, The New York Times

LSU Tigers win their first basketball title in school history.

With their record offensive performance, Louisiana State University (LSU) claimed victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85. The victory cemented LSU head coach Kim Mulkey as the first women’s coach to win national title of two different schools.

Huskies win their fifth national championship in program history

University of Connecticut (Uconn) cuts net for fifth time after a 76-59 victory over San Diego State University Aztecs (having also won the title in 1999, 2004, 2011, 2014). The Huskies won all six of their tournament games by double digits.

Caitlin Clark’s 41-point performance leads Iowa Hawkeyes to a victory against undefeated South Carolina

Iowa’s point-guard drained 41 points and eight assists, defeating the Gamecocks 77-73 and lifting Iowa to its first national championship game in program history.

San Diego State’s Lamont Butler nails buzzer-beating game-winner vs. FAU in Final Four game

Butler buzzer-beating jumper sent the Aztecs to its first national championship game with a 72-71 win over Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in the Final Four.