Before we start digging into our preparation for MVXC19, let’s take a quick look back at MVTF19…
The Season Begins: January 28 was our first practice. While the season seemed to stretch on forever in front of us, less than three weeks later the team was on the clock for the first time with our 400 Shootout. Vishal and Bianca took home best time honors, and the MVTF season was off and running!
March: Pouring rain could not stop eager track athletes, as Monta Vista hosted the third annual RustBuster—bigger and better with 13 schools competing. Monta Vista put up a number of PRs, and our guests helped rewrite the RustBuster record books. We hosted our first league meet with Wilcox and Homestead, featuring a late start and a panicky wait for our timer to arrive. After a finish in the dark, the varsity girls sent a message to the rest of the league with two solid team wins. The young boy throwers made a big statement as Eric, Henry and Sammy swept the discus, while a highlight for the fans was the girls’ 800m–the first seven athletes finished within one second of each other and Monta Vista freshman Jannah emerged victorious out of the crowd! A meet at Fremont followed the next week, and with a hurricane blowing down the home stretch Evelyn, Brooke and Bianca scored top-four CCS times in both the 100m and 200m. The girls’ team took down Fremont to stay a perfect 3-0. At the prestigious St. Francis Invitational, Sylvana won the frosh-soph mile race and Vivian Lau, Melannie, Ellie and Jannah took the frosh-soph DMR championship. Evelyn, Brooke and Triya all represented Monta Vista in the invitational 100m and mile races. The varsity girls team picked up two more victories in a home meet against ‘Toga and ‘Tino, and the boys 4×400 team of Pranav, Arnav, Peter and Andrew brought down the house with a stirring victory down a cheer tunnel to end the meet. Distance runners headed down to SoCal for the Azusa Meet of Champions, where Rohun and Triya were invited to the 3200m night races; back in Cupertino, the jumpers had a field day at the De Anza Invitational as Arnav and Reema flew to triple jump PRs. The team wrapped up the month with a trip up the road to the Stanford invitational, with entries in both the DMR and Evelyn in the open 100m.
Mid-Season: The Monta Vista varsity girls’ team wrapped up a perfect 6-0 league season with a win at Santa Clara, as the girls swept the 200, 800, 1600 and triple jump. At the Quicksilver Invitational, MVTF brought home 27 medals and 32 PRs; Eric Z, Ellie, Arnav, the frosh-soph boys 4×400, Brooke, and the varsity girls’ 4×400 all were meet champions! A red-hot varsity girls’ 4×100 team took second at the Top 8 Classic, as did Eric Z in the discus and the boys’ frosh-soph 4×4 squad, and the team was heading to the post-season.
Post-Season Magic: League finals saw the varsity girls lock down the 2019 league championship with 132 points for a solid win; Evelyn, Brooke, Bianca, Ananya, Sylvana, Rohun, Sotirios, Eric, Martin, Catherine, Sammi, and Reema all scored league championships! The SCVAL championships was a blast for Monta Vista! MVTF had athletes competing in every event. Zoe opened up the meet with a first place finish in the pole vault and a new Monta Vista record; Evelyn and Brooke added first place finishes in the 100m and 200m. The boys 4×4 team qualified for CCS out of the second heat with a dramatic effort as meet ended, right after the girls’ 4×4 team broke their own school record—and 20 pizzas hit the track for a group of joyful MVTF athletes! Evelyn, Brooke, Bianca, Sylvana, Rohun, Vivian C, Reema, Vishal, Derek, Andrew R, Arnav, Martin, JJ, Manu and Zoe all were heading to the CCS meet.
Five MVTF athletes found the podium at CCS, as Evelyn, Brooke, Bianca, Vivian C and Reema all came home with those heavy and meaningful section medals. Brooke advanced to the State Meet in the 200m, where in the evening cool of Clovis in May the MVTF season came to a glorious close—117 days after that first practice in January!
Post-Season Awards: Senior Awards Night recognized many track and field athletes, for academic and community accomplishments as well as athletic achievements—we can accomplish more than one thing at a time, and our athletes continue to demonstrate the ability to use their grit and determination in multiple ways!
- National Merit Scholarships: Sarah Feng (XC and Track), Anjali Thontakudi (XC and Track) (there were only seven winners of this prestigious academic scholarship from all of Monta Vista, and athletes from our teams were two of the seven!)
- Matador Maestro Award (cumulative participation and volunteering in non-athletic activities over four years): Derek Zheng (Track)
- Sameer Murakrka Memorial Scholarship (art): Alisha Gao (Track and XC)
- Art Boosters Scholarship: Alisha Gao (Track and XC)
- Athletic Boosters Scholarships: Sarah Feng (XC and Track), Akshay Gopolkrishnan (Track), Evelyn How (Track), Jessica Ji (Track), Anjali Thontakudi (XC and Track), Derek Zheng (Track). 50% of the 12 scholarships were awarded to Track athletes!
- Evelyn McKeeman Scholarship: Evelyn How, Reema Apte
- David and Alma English Scholarship: Sanjana Borle, Sarah Feng
- Outstanding Senior Athletes: Sarah Feng, Akshay Gopalkrishnan (Track), Jessica Ji (Track), Derek Zheng
- Matador of the Year: Evelyn How (Track and Cross Country athletes have been elected as Matador of the Year in four of the last eight years–Kevin Bishop, Bridget Gottlieb, Kelly Bishop and now Evelyn!).
- Monta Vista Service Above Self Award: Derek Zheng
Season Photos: Don’t forget you can relive this season with Mr. Ma’s wonderful photos! Lots of memories to download and enjoy.
Alumni News: Three graduates of MVTF 2015 continued to compete in college—Julia Chang at Johns Hopkins, Rohun Choudhury at CalTech, and Jenny Xu at MIT—and all three graduated from college this year. Julia is heading on to pursue a PhD in Chemistry at UCLA, and Rohan has been accepted to the PhD program in computer science at Carnegie-Mellon. Yes, it is possible to be a dedicated athlete as well as an exceptional student at the best schools in the country—your coach would say there is correlation as well as causation! Please get in touch with Coach Flatow about alumni news—he loves to hear how MVTF/MVXC alumni are doing and what they are up to.
That Is A Wrap: Congratulations to all of MVTF on a great season! Thank you for all your hard work, your good spirits when the weather is good and bad (I remember an athlete coming back from a tempo run in rain that was blowing sideways exclaiming, “I feel invincible!” before adding some 30/30s to the end of a soggy workout), and your support of each other. I hope you all get together and share your own memories. Seniors, we will miss you (and stay in touch)! Juniors, sophomores and freshmen—you are about to move up the food chain! Have a great summer, work hard, have fun—and see you next year!
