Monta Vista Cross Country started the 2014 season with a bang, totally rocking the Toro Park course at the 20th Earlybird Invitational!
The freshmen girls started off strong, with a team finish that was only 5 teenie, tiny points away from the podium! Argh…but here is the thing about Monta Vista—we have demonstrated that over time, we work harder and improve more than almost any other team. The current senior class finished as runner up their frosh year at Earlybird, and they ended up with back-to-back championships. Hard work and persistence pays off! The frosh girls were lead by Akshara’s 21:27, Megan’s 21:34 and Mitzuki’s 23:28, and the top 5 girls’ team total time was 115 minutes, compared to 114 minutes for the class of 2015 when they were freshmen!
Our freshmen boys also came out hammering – their top 5 team time was 100 minutes and was very solid (last year’s was 99). Mike S. and Derek worked together well at the front of our pack and came in with times of 18:52 and 18:58, respectively. To give some perspective, our fastest of the day, Rohan ran an 18:01 in his first race at Toro.
This freshman class, boys and girls, has some of the best spirit and team chemistry of any group we have seen—both the coaches and the veteran runners agree! After their races, the freshmen were seen all over the course cheering for their teammates with big smiles on their faces! The freshmen were also very appreciative of the support that the seniors gave them; one of the frosh boys came up to me and told them about all the good advice that the seniors gave him, and how that helped his race. No athlete has ever told me that before and I think that is a tribute to our seniors—this is a very strong senior class not just only in talent, but also a group that demonstrates a strong work ethic and team spirit. It’s great to hear that the freshmen appreciate our senior group!
The sophomores next took off and continued with great success. For the boys, both Bennett and Andy finished in the top 100 of their races. Andy had a one minute PR, and also was notable for shaking hands and wishing good luck not only to his teammates but also his competition. The sophomore girls, a small but mighty group, came out blazing as Kelly scored the first MV medal with a 4th place, Paru had a one minute PR, and Salma gave us three runners in the first 35 out of 209 in the race!
Our junior girls decided to top that finish with four runners in the top 20! Maddy, Anna, Namrata and Isabelle all had PRs—including Namrata’s two minute improvement over last year! The junior girls ended up on the podium for their efforts. Brent followed that up with a nice PR of his own, the third consecutive year that Brent improved at Earlybird. He and Vamsee were both in the top 100 out of more than 250 boys in the race.
Our senior boys are a pretty fabulous group. I can’t tell you enough about the dedicated and work ethic that you can see from these young men. The results of this group speak for themselves; this is the fastest group of seniors we have had in the last five years, and that five years saw some very talented seniors graduate. Here are the top 5 team times for the senior boys over this period:
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
102:56 | 92:36 | 93:37 | 93:44 | 91:46 |
The senior group was lead by Rohan’s 16:21, fastest time recorded by MV all day, giving Rohan the rare achievement of improving every single year at Earlybird. Emilio and Akshay were next with improvements of more than a minute, and Justin, Wayne and Young also PRed by more than a minute each. Amazing day!
And if you thought the senior girls did not step up, think again! Jenny and Julia finished 1-2 in the senior race, Julia recording an improvement of 1:50 over last year! Joanne also had a big PR, over one minute faster than last year. The senior girls’ finished as team champions, having stood on the podium at Earlybird every single year they were at Monta Vista—remarkable!
I’m so proud of our seniors, boys and girls. We should all appreciate the class of 2015, this is a very special group.
Monta Vista’s first five girls had an aggregate time of 97:52, which is 1:25 faster than last year’s group, one of the top ten team times ever at Toro (say that 5 times fast J ) and was only 18 seconds off the Monta Vista all-time record!
Rohan, Jenny, and Julia’s times made the all-time Monta Vista list for times at Toro Park.
Overall, think about this statistic: Of 33 runners who were repeating at Earlybird, 26 of them improved this year, almost 80%!
Monta Vista is off to a great start in what can be a very special year! I don’t mean only in terms of performance—and I think we will perform well. Just as importantly, I feel like this group is really cheering for each other and is genuinely happy for the results of their teammates. We are showing great spirit!
This team spirit is so important. Hopefully we all look at our seniors and see them demonstrate that hard work and persistence over a long period of time will pay off. Yet at the same time, it’s hard for a freshman to dedicate themselves to four years of hard work—that’s like asking a 6th grader to be focused on a goal when they are a freshman! That’s hard. What makes persistence easier is being around a group that comes to practice every day, has fun, supports each other, and works hard. A good team spirit like that makes it easier to be persistent and pursue these goals over a long period of time.
I believe our team has that spirit.
I apologize if I missed any notable individual improvement or achievement, I did try to catch them all!
Complete results are available at XCStats and at Lynbrook Sports.
Photos are available for viewing and download at the team’s Picasa site (there are photos from coach, Andy’s father, and a couple random shots that individuals sent in!).
