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Wednesday Photos
Friday Photos
(Thank you as always to Mr. Ma for all the terrific photos!)
Monta Vista finally got a stretch of real, hot track weather–just in time for the El Camino League championship week! This is one of the best weeks of the track season; League Championships is the first week of post-season competition, so while elimination races are starting the full team is still competing. We have a real, big team feel. Athletes are peaking and ready to put up lots of season and personal best marks. And the Monta Vista track and field team was ready to go; the team brought the heat to the track with two days of fine competition and some fantastic results!
Preliminary races on Wednesday went well with many Monta Vista athletes advancing or setting personal records. On Wednesday, the league also held finals for the frosh-soph boys’ and junior varsity girls’ 3200 races and field events. The younger Monta Vista athletes got the team rolling with some great results–headlined by thrower Eric Zheng who won both frosh-soph boys’ shot (with a PR of 43′) and discus! Catherine Cole brought home the junior varsity girls’ championship in the high jump with a 4′-6″ jump, Cheryl Bai cleared 30′ in the triple jump for the first time on her way to a 4th place finish and all-league honors, and Brandon Xu chipped in with a second place in the triple jump. The distance runners got rolling, with Ellie Hsu and Rachel Jiang going 2-3 in the 3200 (12:37 and 12:49) to put the Monta Vista distance team on the podium and add 14 points to our team total, while Sahil Goel added a third place with his 10:33.82 PR!
Friday dawned with clear, blue skies, and with coaches that could not wait for 3pm to arrive! First on the track was the varsity girls’ 4x100m relay, and the CCS defending champions took care of business and set a tone with a 49.08 mark and a solid two-second victory. The team of Evelyn How, Brooke and Bianca Young, along with new teammate Sammi Dunn look ready for post-season action. The 1600m is the first distance race, and that side of the team also was ready to go; Sylvana Northrop had a PR of 5:18.02 to take second place for the varsity girls along with Triya Roy’s fourth place only a second later. All the frosh-soph boys had PRs (Sahil Goel got under 4:40 with a 4:39.77 mark), Justin Yu, and Pranav Reddy) along with a five second PR as Rachel Jiang ran a 5:54; Ellie Hsu took home a second all-league honor with her fourth place finish and a fine 5:46 time as Sahil and Justin went 4-5 also.
More success followed for the Monta Vista track team. Sotirios Kougiouris peaked at the right time of the season with PRs in the 65m and 300m hurdle races (10.30 and 44.37), winning both races in the frosh-soph division while testing the announcers ability to pronounce names in the process. Fellow hurdlers Zoe Wang (48.90) and Alisha Gao (50.61) both had PRs in the 300m hurdles as they both earned varsity all-league honors, and Zoe added a fifth place in the 100 hurdles as well. The varsity girls’ sprinters built upon the great start in the 4x100m, and took championships in every sprint event–100m (Evelyn), 200m (Brooke), and 400m (Bianca)–and a 1-2-3 sweep in the 200m lead by Brooke’s 25.66 and followed by Evie and Bianca that broke the varsity girls’ team competition wide open. The JV girls demonstrated that Monta Vista has team sprinting depth, as Ananya Rajagopal and Vibha Iyengar added a 1-2 finish in the 400m.
The distance runners showed a lot of strength and grit also. Immediately after Monta Vista varsity girls went 1-2-3 in the 200, Sylvana, Triya and freshman Vivian Lau put up a 1-2-4 finish in the Varsity 3200m; with 46 points in two races, those six girls helped the girls’ team open up a commanding lead that was never threatened. Syl and Vivian both had solid PRs (11:38 and 11:44), and the regular season ends with Monta Vista girls having four of the top six 3200 times in the league–with all four girls returning next year! Sahil finished his season with frosh-soph podium finishes in the 800, 1600 and 3200m distances–all three of the distance races, and Justin Yu added a 4th in the 800m and a 5th in the 1600m. In the varsity boys’ 3200m, sophomore Rohun Agrawal ran one of the most impressive races of the entire season by any Monta Vista runner, as he took the lead from the first lap and continued to push the pace. While a competitor tried to hook on and make Rohun do the hard work early, Rohun continued to grind and for the last two laps he was running alone as he rolled in with a 9:47 PR and a seven second victory (while taking down Coach Flatow’s high school PR 🙂 ). This was an impressive race for anyone, particularly for a sophomore.
Field events were again headlined by a thrower, as Martin Xiao was the first Monta Vista boy in more than a decade to win a league championship in a throwing event. Martin won the varsity boys’ discus with a 138′-3″ toss, and added a third place finish in the shot. Manu Kondapaneni added a second place in the high jump with a 5′-10″ leap, and sophomore Arnav Raut competed in the varsity triple jump and added another second place finish. Jessica Ji and Sammi added podium finishes in the high jump and more points for the varsity girls’ team.
The Monta Vista girls completed an undisputed league championship season, following up an unblemished 6-0 league record with a win at the league meet; the girls scored 132.5 points for a solid victory (second place had 85 points). The JV girls and frosh-soph boys both had third place finishes, while the varsity boys’ took fifth. Because the varsity boys had a number of sophomore boys scoring for them, next year could be really bright for the boys–almost all of the scorers are coming back and good group of younger kids are coming up to join the effort!
Monta Vista athletes ended up recording many PRs, which is a wonderful result whether an athlete is ending the season or continuing on to the SCVAL meet! Here is a list and I hope that I listed them all, I apologize if I missed anyone…
Personal Records Set at Leagues
Samantha Dunn (100)
Andie Liu (200)
Reema Apte, Vivian Cheng, Ananya Rajagopal, Vibha Iyengar (400)
Claire Lin, Upasana Dilip, Kyle Tsujimoto, Sahil Goel, Justin Yu, Matthew Sun (800)
Sylvana Northrop, Rachel Jiang, Eric Wang, Sahil Goel, Justin Yu, Pranav Reddy (1600)
Sylvana Northrop, Vivian Lau, Anoushka Lakshmi, Rohun Agrawal, Sahil Goel (3200)
Conner Hsu, Sotirios Kougiouris (high hurdles)
Zoe Wang, Alisha Gao, Sean Chen, Conner Hsu, Sotirios Kougiouris (low hurdles)
Eric Zheng (shot)
Manu Kondapaneni (long jump)
Cheryl Bai (triple jump)
Monta Vista also ended up taking home a dozen championships–and never forget that you are always a league champion!
2019 El Camino League Champions
Evelyn How – Varsity Girls’ 100m
Brooke Young – Varsity Girls’ 200m
Bianca Young – Varsity Girls’ 400m
Ananya Rajagopal – JV Girls’ 400m
Sylvana Northrop – Varsity Girls’ 3200m
Rohun Agrawal – Varsity Boys’ 3200m
Sotirios Kougiouris – FS Boys’ 65mH
Sotirios Kougiouris – FS Boys’ 300mH
Eric Zheng – FS Boys’ Shot Put
Martin Xiao – Varsity Boys’ Discus
Eric Zheng – FS Boys’ Discus
Catherine Cole – JV Girls’ High Jump
Evelyn How, Brooke Young, Samantha Dunn, Bianca Young – Varsity Girls’ 4x100mR
Reema Apte, Evelyn How, Bianca Young, Brooke Young – Varsity Girls’ 4x400mR
