Monta Vista track & field has a fondness for the St. Francis meet. The track is unique and fun to run upon, the meet is elite and conveniently close–and we seem to get some great performances every year.
The morning started off with Lauren Ling and Nitin Subramanian warming up for the 3000m with the sun coming up. Nitin’s 9:39.98 (with another blazing last 200m) converts to a 10:20ish 3200, leading us to believe that a 3200 PR is coming.
Jannah Sheriff got on the track later in the morning and recorded her first sub-2:30 mark in the 800, with a 2:29.86 that was good for fourth place. Anjali Thontakudi continued to build up with a season best 2:32.55 in the same event. Sylvana Northrop ran a smart mile race and notched a 5:28.32 (5:26.8 or so for 1600) that won the frosh-soph division, and Ellie Hsu chased her around the track to go solidly under 6 with a 5:54.83. Melannie Ooi had her season best in the 100, as did Bianca Young in the 400m race, flashing 60.72 speed.
Meanwhile, Zoe Wang was giving Monta Vista it’s first competitive pole vaults in at least a decade. After some private coaching, Zoe grabbed a pole and drove her fans wild as she made her first three heights without a miss. After clearing 8′, Zoe finished in 5th place in her first competitive pole vault competition.
Other field eventers were having good days too. Reema Apte recorded a season best triple jump of 32′-11″, with Jessica Ji right there with 32′-9.5″ to both finish in the top 10. Brandon Xu set a personal record in his triple jump with a 39′-1″ leap, while junior Martin Xiao had a 43′-3 personal record in the shot.
There were two clear field events highlights for Monta Vista. In the discus, Martin had a mighty heave of 140′–a 20 foot personal record!–to take second place in the varsity division. Meanwhile Jessica cleared 5′-2″ in the high jump for a PR of her own and a tie for highest jump of the day–and JJ came within a hair of clearing 5′-4″ too! She is really close to jumping her height. Great job, JJ and Martin!
The afternoon gets hot with invitational races and a lot of relays. Monta Vista was well represented in the prestigious invitational heats, with Evelyn How and Brooke Young taking fourth and fifth in the 100m with 12.71 and 12.89 marks. Triya Roy ran a gutsy race in the invitational mile, recording a big PR of 5:20.34 (5:18.9 1600) to take third place in a fast field. Ashton Eaton was on hand to greet the invitational race finishers and pass out shirts (MV coaches were scandalized by some athletes who did not know who Ashton Eaton is!).
Monta Vista rolled into the relays, with Vivian Lau leading off the Distance Medley Relay (4000m in four segments 1200-400-800-1600) with a four minute 1200, handing over a lead that Melannie, Ellie and Jannah kept as the girls romped to the second Monta Vista event championship of the day with a 13:27, holding off hard charging Gunn and (XC championship rival) Carlmont teams. The frosh-soph boys DMR team almost matched the girls, as Andrew Richardson, Arnav Raut, Pranav Reddy and Rohun Agrawal grabbed second place behind host St. Francis. The sprinters took two relay seconds, as Evelyn, Brooke and Bianca joined with new relay partner Vivian Cheng to go under 50 in the 4×100 for the first time this season, and the same group came back to throw down a 4:12.40 in the 4×400 for another second place finish.
All in all, a fabulous day with our first day of nice, warm track weather! Great job, everyone!
Complete results are up on athletic.net. Mr Ma was there taking photos, they are not posted yet but should be shortly on his MV photo site.
Next up, Monta Vista hosts Cupertino and Saratoga (‘Tino and ‘Toga) on Thursday at 3:30 in a triangle meet, as the varsity girls try to maintain their unblemished league record and the boys are in the hunt in both varsity and frosh-soph divisions.
