MVTF Qualifies 11 to CCS!
This past Saturday, Monta Vista Track & Field competed at the SCVAL Championships at Santa Clara High School. It was a slightly windy, but beautiful day of competition which saw 11 of our athletes qualifying to move on to the next stage: CCS Trials on Saturday, May 16th! For girls, you had to place in the top 6 in your event(s) to qualify and for boys it was top 5. SCVAL is one of the most challenging leagues in all of CCS to qualify out of, so this is really quite an accomplishment!
Before I get into the specific performances from the weekend, I want to mention how we did as a team. If you look at the combined team scores, putting boys and girls together, Monta Vista landed at 5th overall out of 15 schools. The next best ECAL school was Fremont in 8th. Varsity Boys were also 5th in their competition, but big news was the Varsity Girls placing ahead of the boys with a 4th place team finish! Los Altos, Los Gatos, and Palo Alto were the only teams ahead of our ladies (these are what you call powerhouse teams!).
Girls’ Performances
On the track, a trio Miranda Hsu, Naomi Hsu, and Suhani Pahuja represented the girls’ team in the 3200m. They all ran a strong race with M. Hsu running a season’s best, nearly capturing a new PR! That earned her an 11th place finish, with Pahuja behind in 12th and N. Hsu in 14th. Our girls 4x800m relay team did not end up competing.
Most of the action for the girls took place in the field. Lauren Moore had a solid competition in the triple jump landing in the 7th spot, one off from CCS qualification. We’ll keep our eyes on the scratch list to see if she squeaks in. In the long jump, Zoe Laruelle leaped to 9th place but she earned her ticket to CCS in the triple jump by securing 2nd place with a jump of 35′ 4.5″, her best this season. Her sister, Lelani Laruelle, punched two tickets to CCS with a 1st place in the high jump and a 2nd place in the long jump with a season’s best of 17′ 6″. Allie Rummelhoff had the most CCS qualifications with 3: triple jump, shot put, and discus! She placed 3rd in the triple jump with a new PR of 35′ 1″, 3rd in the discus, and 2nd in the shot put. Throwing teammate, Gillie Ross, was the final CCS qualifier with her win in the shot put off a throw just over 37′! Ross also competed in the discus where she landed 15th. Awesome job, ladies!
Boys’ Performances
The day got started with a nice PR of 145′ 4″ in the discus by Eddie Fan, earning him a 3rd place and a ticket to CCS! Later on, Fan came back in the shot put to end up in 16th, but Kingston Jourdan threw a PR of 45′ 0.5″ which was good for 6th place. He was just 8″ from a CCS spot – tough, but still great to be right there in the mix! Adarsh Inampudi and Ethan Yang competed in the triple jump, earning the 8th and 15th spots, respectively. Ryan Shen went 3 for 3 on CCS qualifications in the jumps. He won both the long and high jump events and got 2nd in the triple jump. He has his sights on qualifying for state in all 3 events and capturing the final infinity stone in jumps school records: the 6′ 8″ high jump.
On the track, Jake Tong, Ivan Shliakhov, Jeffrey Choy, and Jayden Tang got things started in the 4x100m relay with a solid race that earned 6th place. Super close to a CCS qualification! After that, Yang (yes, the same one that triple jumped) ran the 1600m, placing 14th. The dynamic hurdle duo of Constantine Chua and Alex Frefel competed in the 110m hurdles next, earning 11th and 13th in a stacked field. Chua got under 17 seconds for the first time to record a new PR of 16.68! In the 400m, Shliakhov and Choy sprinted to 12th and 16th places, respectively. Tang posted his fastest time of the year in the 100m of 11.08 to end up 8th place. This kind of time would earn a CCS qualification most years in SCVAL, and would certainly qualify for CCS out of other leagues. 11.08 is nothing to sneeze at! One of the highlights on the track was Riu Yamada’s 800m performance where he won his heat in PR fashion running 1:58.51! This earned him 7th place overall and again, would probably earn a CCS qualification out of most other leagues. Our only individual CCS qualifier on the track was Chua, a little baby sophomore, who finished 4th in the 300m hurdles! He had another sub-42 second race, showing that he’s peaking at the right time. Teammate, Frefel, ended up 15th in the field of 300m hurdlers. Tang came back in the 200m to finish in a solid 11th place. Our 4x400m relay team of Chua, Yamada, Shliakhov, and Choy ran a really solid race, but came up a bit short with 7th place. Now, I’ve saved the 4x800m relay for last, even though it wasn’t the last race of the day and that’s because it was the most exciting race that I’ve seen in a while. We had a team of Yang (again, the dude triple jumped and ran the 1600m as well!), Tarun Gandhi, Sam Heinonen, and Yamada – that’s three sophomores and one senior! Yang got things off to a blistering start with a 2:03 split which is a 1-second PR for him! More than that, he just ran with such incredible heart and absolutely wasn’t backing down. He put his team in position to battle, handing off to Gandhi in roughly 3rd place. I truly believe that the way Yang ran that first leg is what inspired Gandhi to run a 9 SECOND PR of 2:03 and keep our team in the front pack! That wasn’t all, because Heinonen ran a 3 second PR of 2:06 to keep us in 3rd place. Yamada got the baton and it was lights out. He ate up 2nd place and stormed to the finish line with a 2:02 split and an overall time of 8:16.64. This is the 3rd fastest 4x800m in school history and we cannot be more excited to see you guys take on CCS!
All CCS Qualifiers
- Allie Rummelhoff – shot put, discus, triple jump
- Gillie Ross – shot put
- Lelani Laruelle – high jump, long jump
- Zoe Laruelle – triple jump
- Ryan Shen – long jump, high jump, triple jump
- Eddie Fan – discus
- Constantine Chua – 300m hurdles
- Ethan Yang, Tarun Gandhi, Sam Heinonen, Riu Yamada – 4x800m relay
5 PRs total!
1 Girls PR!
- Allie Rummelhoff – triple jump
4 Boys PRs!
- Kingston Jourdan – shot put
- Eddie Fan – discus
- Constantine Chua – 110m hurdles
- Riu Yamada – 800m