Starting out the season with a three-way meet is a challenge, and Monta Vista track and field was ready for the test as we hosted Homestead and Wilcox in our first El Camino League meet on Thursday, March 7.
In the first event of the league season, the Monta Vista varsity girls’ 4×100 team raced out to a 50.7 time and a win by more than two seconds over the second place Homestead group. That’s the way to set a tone!
The Monta Vista sprinters continued to make a mark thoughout the meet. Evelyn How, Brooke Young and Bianca Young had matching first place finishes in the 100, 200 and 400 meter races, Pranav Pata and Vishal Koppuru led the boy sprinters. The boys also welcomed back Peter Heydinger from the wrestling team who started right off with a 56 in the 400.
Freshman Jannah Sheriff turned her day into a demonstration of grit. After finishing 8th in the varsity girls’ 1600m race, she came back in the 800m and won that race-coming in ahead of every single girl who had been ahead of her an hour before. The 800m finish was a pell-mell fight to end, with less than one second separating Jannah’s first place from seventh. It would have been easy to be thinking ‘this is just not my night’, but Jannah fought hard and had a comeback night to remember. Your coaches will tell this 8th to 1st story for years to kids that look discouraged and need a little inspiration (and before long these kids will be sure that their coaches will be telling fiction). This is a lesson to remember–don’t give up, you can turn a rough day into a great one.
Monta Vista throwers had an excellent meet. After scoring three varsity shot points, Vibha Iyengar followed up with an almost 20′ personal record in the discus! Not to be outdone, Martin Xiao had a 2′ shot PR and a 5′ discus PR, Aravind Subramanian had a PR of his own, and the frosh-soph boys had a 1-2-3 sweep of the discus–the first time in nine years of coaching at Monta Vista that I have written that sentence I am sure! Way to go, Eric-Sammy-Henry, keep up the good work! I don’t know what Coach Heen is feeding those kids, but let’s order seconds.
Another theme of Thursday’s meet was athletes finding creative ways to help our team. Reema Apte jumped into the 300m hurdles for the first time and in addition to a PR 🙂 notched a fourth place finish and points against both Homestead and Wilcox. Srika Kodur and Claire Yang got kudos from hurdle coach Ray Cornell for their first clean runs in the 300mH, too. Sophomore Will Erf bumped up to varsity in the high jump and cleared 5’2″ to bring Monta Vista three points in both contests. Newcomer sprinters Tabitha Mendez and Jen Prall both have been learning to throw the shot and discus, too, and brought home points for MVTF on Thursday night. After running tough races earlier in the day, during the 3200m, Alex Richardson was asked to fill in for the 4×4 and he said ‘sure’ even though he had already run two hard races, and there he was as the Monta Vista boys squad had the fastest time of the day.
I’m so proud to see kids try to figure out ways to help the team in any way they can. That trait and desire to contribute is important to any team.
It’s hard to score personal records in an early season league meet, but MVTF athletes had a number of PRs. I am not sure this is a complete list, but PRs I saw include: Alex Richardson (400), Daiwik Swaminathan (400), Christian Dulay (1600), Conner Hsu and Sean Chen (300H), Martin Xiao (shot and discus), Ashwyn Ashanta (shot and discus), Eric, Henry and Sammy (shot), Arnav Raut (long jump), Andie Liu (200), Claire Lin (800), Triya Roy and Rachel Jiang (3200), and Vibha Iyengar (discus). That’s a strong start to a season and I know that there will be many, many PRs to celebrate in the coming weeks!
Monta Vista varsity girls swept the team competition, the frosh-soph boys split with a win against Wilcox, while our other teams went down in hard-fought losses. We have a lot of potential to build upon, and we will.
Complete results can be seen here. Team scores are tabulated in a separate file.
A couple big shout outs to meet operations:
- Monta Vista was using a new timer at our meet, Aliya Dibrell and her daughter. After a location problem causing a late arrival, Ms. Dibrell showed up and was set up and running faster than any timing team we have seen! Under tremendous pressure, this mother-daughter team did an incredible job of timing. I can’t say enough about this team of timers. I’m an instant fan of Aliya Dibrell and we hope to have her time more meets for us next year and beyond. Big thumbs up and a hearty recommendation; good timers make a meet work. Thank you, Aliya!
- New coach Stephanie Ekeh crushed it while judging the girls’ horizontal jumps. This was Coach Steph’s first time judging a meet solo and she did a great job. Athletes and coaches from other teams took notice not only of coach’s competence but also her upbeat manner and support and encouragement of all the jumpers on every team, not just MVTF.
- First time teacher-volunteer Mr. Mark Diamonte was tossed into the deep end. We expected to have some returning volunteers to judge the boys’ jumps and ease Mr. Diamonte into his first track experience. Instead we had some no-shows and so after a ten minute crash course from Coach Steph, Mr. Diamonte was left to judge the boys’ horizontal jumps. He was done on time and with zero complaints; there is no higher praise for an event judge. Thanks and well done, Mr. Diamonte! Athletes, if you see Mr. Diamonte around school, please say ‘thank you’–even if you are not a jumper, tell him you heard what he did for us. People like hearing that they are appreciated.
- Thank you to all the Monta Vista athletes, teachers and parents who helped set up, run, and clean up after the meet. Of course thank you to Mrs. Flatow, who not only allows Coach Flatow to throw his time into MVTF but is also a fan, and team parent Mrs. Imamura for coordinating all the volunteers. Thank you also to our Octagon student-volunteers, their enthusiasm and support really makes a difference. This really is a wonderful group — Monta Vista track and field is really a family.
- Check out the Monta Vista automated cone distribution system.
Next up for Monta Vista is an dual meet at Fremont on March 12.
Well done everyone!
Wilcox-Monta-Vista-Triangle-Scores2