“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”
—Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympic Games
Link to complete RESULTS
The day of Central Coast Section Prelims is one of the biggest days in a young athlete’s year. For many athletes, simply being one of the few athletes from the 150+ schools in the section to qualify for the CCS meet is the pinnacle of a high school track career. For a few, the prelims is the chance to advance to the championship finals under the lights a week later. For everyone, the prelim meet is both celebration and pressure.
Monta Vista advanced 15 athletes to the CCS prelims. First up at 10am on Saturday, May 11, was Zoe Wang in the pole vault. Zoe finished in a tie for 21st place in all of CCS–in her first year of vaulting! Something tells us that Zoe will be back next year, jumping a lot higher–Zoe is a fearless and determined young woman.
Action started on the track at 11:00, and the first heat of the day saw the Monta Vista 4x100m girls get on the track. Evelyn How, Brooke Young, Bianca Young and Vivian Cheng put together a 49.89 mark, well off the Monta Vista season best of 48.61 but still good enough to advance the girls to the finals on Friday night the 17th. Bianca got back on the track soon afterwards and ran an excellent 59.03 for the 400; while this was a season best for Bianca and a quarter-second off her all-time PR, this was a fast field and Bianca just missed advancing to the finals as an individual.
Evelyn and Brooke ran almost identical 12.72/12.75 times in the 100m, and both advanced to the 100m finals–two of the eight lanes in the finals will be filled by these Monta Vista athletes! Brooke followed up with a 25.53 in the 200m, moving Brooke into her third final with the second fastest mark on the day.
Meanwhile in field events, senior Manu Kondapeneni completed his MVTF career with his first CCS appearance in the high jump and a tie for 28th in the section. Fellow jumper Jessica Ji cleared 5’0″ and barely missed advancing to the finals next week after the tie-break did not come out in her favor. Junior Martin Xiao finished his breakthrough season in the throws with a personal record 46′-03″ shot put, a 5″ improvement and less than a foot and a half from making finals. Martin finished the season throwing the 12 pound shot further than he was throwing the 10 pound shot as a sophomore!–that is an impressive accomplishment. Wait until next year!
By the time the 3200m began, temperatures were getting warm, but Sylvana Northrop took care of business and qualified for finals based upon her 11:22.09 time–only a second off her PR run the week before under better conditions. Rohun Agrawal missed moving on to finals, however his 9:54 mark was one of only 19 times under 10 minutes on this warm afternoon–Saturday was sprint weather more than distance weather. Rohun’s breakthrough season, with improvements of more than 20 seconds in his 1600m and almost a full minute in the 3200m, was truly remarkable–and there is more to come!
The last events of the day were the 4x400m relays. The girls’ team of Reema Apte along with Evelyn, Brooke and Bianca won their heat with a 4:05.88 to advance with a minimum of drama. The boys’ team of Vishal Koppuru, Derek Zheng, Andrew Richardson and Arnav Raut followed a different path; after putting up a season-best 3:27.88 to take third place in the first heat, the team had to sweat out the next three heats to find out that they made the finals by less than a second! An impressive fact–the boys qualified with three sophomores (Vishal, Andrew and Arnav) along with a senior (Derek) while all of the other seven teams that qualified only had three sophomore boys COMBINED (one each for Los Altos, Monterey, and Serra). Next week’s 4x400m race will be exciting, with only 4.52 seconds separating the first and eighth qualifier!
The Monta Vista track season continues! Qualifiers moving forward are:
Reema Apte** (4x400m)
Vivian Cheng (4x100m)
Evelyn How** (4x100m, 100m, 4x400m)
Vishal Koppuru (4x400m)
Sylvana Northrop (3200m)
Arnav Raut (4x400m)
Andrew Richardson (4x400m)
Bianca Young** (4x100m, 4x400m)
Brooke Young** (4x100m, 100m, 200m, 4x400m)
Derek Zheng** (4x400m)
**Second time competing in CCS Finals.
Next week’s CCS Finals will be held again at Gilroy High School, beginning at 6pm on Friday, May 17; CCS is a great meet, so why don’t you plan to come enjoy a great evening of track and cheer on the Monta Vista athletes? A complete schedule of events is on the CCS site included in the meet information bulletin.
I’m sorry that there are not more photographs–we did not have Mr. Ma taking great photos, and my camera lost a most of the back end of the meet–hopefully someone will post more photos later!
