MVTF Christens New Track with 400m Action
On Wednesday, February 25, 2025, the Monta Vista Track & Field team rallied together to host our own intrasquad mini-meet: the 400m Shootout! This event contains multitudes; an excellent showcase of the hard work that was put in over the winter, a potentially torturous endeavor for the non-runners, and an eye-opening realization to what being on a track team is like (and to how bad the 400 hurts). This year did not disappoint!
Girls Go for Gold
On the girls’ side of the evening’s competition, we saw a couple of surprises. Leading the way for the 3rd year in a row was 2025 high jump state champion Lelani Laruelle with a time of 1:03.67, just .13 off from her personal best. Second and third place overall for the girls actually came from a couple of JV athletes in Vishakha Shastri (1:12.92) and Myra Mishra (1:14.02), Mishra achieving a personal best. Rounding out the top 3 for Varsity were Suhani Pahuja (1:14.60) and Miranda Hsu (1:15.12). And last but not least, our final medal winner for JV was freshman Sophia Li in 1:15.23. I see many distance squad 4x400m relay teams in the near future…
Great job ladies!
Boys Building Buzz
For our boys, the young guns stole the show! A trio of sophomores took top honors in Varsity competition, all achieving much faster time than they debuted with in 2025. Jeffrey Choy raced to first place in a time of 54.86, within a couple tenths of his personal best. Constantine Chua came in second with a time of 55.06, a personal best for him. In third with another personal best was Riu Yamada in 55.14 seconds. This goes to show that experience isn’t everything – these fellas have been working extremely hard over the winter and have dedicated themselves to this sport. Now it’s paying off! In JV action, Aiden White took care of first place with a 4-second personal best time of 1:00.45. Second and third place shocked the world, coming out of a lower heat and coming within inches of White’s time from the top heat. Carter Miller crossed the line in 1:00.52, a 5-second improvement from last year. Finally, Yibo Wang boasted a 7-second personal best finishing right behind Miller in 1:00.59. It would have been interesting to see how these three would have raced each other in the same heat! Awesome job, men!
23 PRs in Total!
Not counting first year/first timed 400m.
5 Girls PRs
- Myra Mishra
- Naomi Hsu
- Medha Rustagi
- Jasmine Zhao
- Alex Sharma
18 Boys PRs
- Constantine Chua
- Riu Yamada
- Ethan Yang
- Agasthya Kothuri
- Jake Tong
- Kento Murase
- Tarun Gandhi
- Sam Heinonen
- Aiden White
- Carter Miller
- Yibo Wang
- Ritik Shenoy
- Evan Chen
- Aidan Cushman-Kihnley
- Eddie Fan
- Richie Yu
- Brandon Wang
- Vikram Mallya