On Thursday, March 5th 2026, Monta Vista Track and Field travelled across town to Cupertino High School to face the Pioneers in our first competition of the season. It was a beautiful day for a track meet, complete with sunshine and a light tailwind breeze down the home stretch. Your Matadors came out with two team victories in the Varsity Boys and JV Girls – great job!
One of the main themes of the evening was to allow ourselves to feel pride. This was the first meet of a long season and many of our athletes were not exactly happy with their performances. My suspicion is because those athletes did not achieve their personal best marks. What your coaches have to say about that is that you got out there and set a foundation for which you can build the rest of the season on! There’s no expectation to open your season with literally the best performances of your life – that would be crazy! Some people did that, and that’s crazy awesome! But it’s not the standard, nor the expectation. The expectation is that you got out there and gave your best effort, no matter the mark or time. I think all of our athletes achieved that, and I want you all to be proud of yourselves for it. So let yourself feel happy with your first competition and let’s take as much positivity into our next meet on Saturday at home for RustBuster! Now, let’s dive into each division’s top performances and highlights…
Girls Show Young Strength
We have a pretty young team this year, especially on the girls’ side. Our deep JV girls pulled out a narrow victory over ‘Tino with a score of 57-55. Had we not put together our two relays teams (and especially the somewhat last minute 4x400m), we would have suffered a loss. Thank you to all of the girls that stepped up! For our point scorers (top three in each individual event or a win in a relay), there were many. The 4x100m relay team of Ellie Kong, Mya Vu, Caroline Labudde, and Genevieve To didn’t have JV competition, so by way of just showing up they earned the team 5 points! That really matters. We also swept the 1600m with Medha Rustagi, Zeynep Dogan, and Sophia Li take 3rd through 1st place, respectively. Evie Hufnagel took 2nd place in the 100m hurdles with Kong following shortly behind in 3rd place. Rustagi took top honors in the 800, followed by another 2nd place finish in the 300m hurdles from Hufnagel. Rounding out the track events with a win was the 4×400 relay team of Labudde, Rustagi, Dogan, and Li. In the field, Ashley Ten took 3rd in the discus throw, Vu and Hufnagel swept the high jump with 1st and 2nd places, respectively, another sweep in the long jump with Audre Chang, To, and Lubudde going 1-3, and a final sweep in the triple jump with Kong and Chang take 1st and 2nd!
On the varsity side of things, ‘Tino came out on top with a 71-50 win. We had 8 sophomores and 1 freshman competing for varsity out of out total 18. 5 of those 9 girls are in their first week of their first track season. That is a lot to ask of young athletes, to jump straight into varsity competition. I’m very proud of how these girls rose to the occasion. We didn’t beat ‘Tino, but I see it as a total win that we were able to get out there and compete despite the lack of experience. Seriously, be proud of that! Naomi Hsu grabbed our first points with a 3rd place finish in the 1600m. Vishakha Shastri jumped into the 400m and earned 2nd place. Sofia Grigolia snagged a 3rd place finish in the 100m followed by a 3rd place finish from Mel Zhao in the 800m. Lelani Laruelle found her way to the track and took a victory in the 200m which was followed up by a 2nd and 3rd place finish in the 3200m by Suhani Pahuja and Miranda Hsu, respectively – what an exciting finish by those two! MV dominated in the field, scoring 35 out of the 41 points scored. Allie Rummelhoff started things off with a win in the discus throw, followed by Jasmine Zhao‘s win in the high jump. We swept the long jump with Rummelhoff, Lauren Moore, and Grigolia holding things down. Rummelhoff and Laruelle went 1st and 2nd, respectively, in the shot put with some extremely impressive performances, I might add. Rummelhoff threw only about a foot shy of her PR from a stationary, standing throw, and Laruelle is a jumper/sprinter who launched the shot over 30 feet! If you don’t think that’s impressive, I challenge you to see what you can do with that heavy ball. To round things out Rummelhoff took her third win of the day in triple jump with Moore backing her up in 2nd place. Although we didn’t win the meet, there were clearly many excellent performances that we can and will build on in the coming months. Be proud of yourselves!
Boys Also Show Young Strength
Our JV boys’ team had to make a bit of a sacrifice for the betterment of the varsity squad. 5 sophomores were promoted to varsity competition, all scoring point toward the team’s victory. However, the JV boys still have solid ground to stand on in the performances of their point scorers, despite the 43-72 loss. In the 1600m, Ritik Shenoy took 2nd place followed by Aiden White in 3rd. Arjun Rayankula pulled out a 3rd place finish in the 400m and Carter Miller also grabbed a point with a 3rd place finish in the 100m. The boys swept the 800m with 1-3 belonging to Shenoy, Darin Young, and White, respectively. In the 3200m, Akshat Ambekar celebrated a victory and teammate Soma Pujara was not far behind in 3rd place. Our JV boys’ 4x400m relay team earned the sole 5 points with a team of Evan Chen, White, Shenoy, Young. In the pits, Misha Bakhtin and Adam Yang topped both the long jump and triple jump, each earning 1st and 2nd, respectively. Leo Jayasena snuck in a 3rd place finish to round out the sweep in the triple jump.
It was a different story for the varsity boys who had a commanding win over ‘Tino, scoring 77 to their 46. Ethan Yang got things going on the track with a 2nd place finish in the 1600m. Constantine Chua and Alex Frefel followed that up with a 1-2 punch in the 110m hurdles. Ivan Shilakhov earned a 2nd place finish in the 400m followed by a 3rd place finish in the 100m from Jayden Tang. Riu Yamada won the 800m with Yang returning to the track for his second 2nd place finish of the evening. Chua and Frefel took care of business in the 300m hurdles with another 1st and 2nd place, respectively. In the 200m, Jeffrey Choy found the podium with a 2nd place finish followed by Max Shaykin in 3rd (both getting in the 23 second range). Tarun Gandhi and Sam Heinonen took 1st and 3rd places in the 3200m, respectively and our 4x400m relay team of Jonah Chang, Chua, Yamada, and Choy carried the baton home to victory. The varsity boys’ field athletes had a similarly dominate performance to the ladies, scoring 31 of the 41 given points. Eddie Fan took 2nd in the discus throw and 3rd in the shot put, while Kingston Jourdan won the shot put. Ryan Shen took the win in the high jump with what I would only have to guess was a standing vertical jump of 5’2″. Shen also took the long jump with Agasthya Kothuri very narrowly behind in 2nd place. Kothuri got his with a victory in the triple jump, with Shen in 2nd and Yang in 3rd with a massive 2′ PR! Nice job, gentlemen!
Thank you, Matadors!
Aside from all of the great performances highlighted above, there was one really awesome thing that our athletes did at our meet at CHS. Many of us did our part in building a great society, simply by helping the Pioneers with moving and setting hurdles. When we all participate in helping one another, it truly only takes a small part to make the whole better. It might seem silly to compare moving hurdles to having a better society, but it’s actually a pretty real thing. The more that we avoid the “it’s not my job” mindset and just lend a hand anyway, the better the world will be.
Not only did we help, but what I witnessed was an enthusiastic desire to help! I know your coaches appreciated it and I’m sure the ‘Tino coaches did as well. More than that, you really made us proud with these actions. Keep it up, team!
30 PRs in Total!
Not counting first set high school marks! Your very first high school times/marks are definitely PRs, however what we list below are the instances where previously set PRs are broken.
9 Girls PRs!
- Lauren Moore – 100m
- Vishakha Shastri – 400m
- Naomi Hsu – 1600m
- Myra Mishra – 3200m
- Lelani Laruelle – SP
- Alex Sharma – SP
- Alex Sharma – DT
- Sofia Grigolia – LJ
- Lauren Moore – TJ
21 Boys PRs!
- Jeffrey Choy – 100m
- Max Shaykin – 100m
- Constantine Chua – 100m
- Jake Tong – 100m
- Richie Yu – 100m
- Jeffrey Choy – 200m
- Max Shaykin – 200m
- Richie Yu – 200m
- Yibo Wang – 200m
- Riu Yamada – 800m
- Ethan Yang – 800m
- Aiden White – 800m
- Ethan Yang – 1600m
- Aiden White – 1600m
- Sam Heinonen – 3200m
- Kingston Jourdan – SP
- Eddie Fan – SP
- Dayo Davies – LJ
- Jake Tong – LJ
- Agasthya Kothuri – TJ
- Ethan Yang – TJ