A Record-Setting Event
This past Saturday, March 7th, Monta Vista hosted the 10th RustBuster Invitational. This 10th installment may very well have been the absolute best ever! I’m quite confident it was the best weather that we’ve ever seen for the event, with sunny skies and not a drop of precipitation. But the bigger news is that 26 meet records were broken!! Huge shoutouts to our Matadors who were part of taking down those meet records:
- Ryan Shen in the varsity boys long jump with a leap of 22′ 6.5″, taking his own record from last year
- The frosh-soph boys 4x800m relay team of Tarun Gandhi, Ritik Shenoy, Sam Heinonen, and Riu Yamada with a time of 8:45.67
- Constantine Chua in the frosh-soph boys 300m hurdles, taking down an 11 year stadium record with a time of 43.64
- The frosh-soph boys 4x400m relay team of Aaryan Samanta, Chua, Yamada, and Jeffrey Choy, taking down another 11 year stadium record with a time of 3:39.86
Aside from the aforementioned achievements, Monta Vista Track & Field put on display our unique ability to create a fun, positive, and helpful environment for all of our guests! You guys were all over the place jumping in to help keep the meet running smoothly and I saw you helping each other out when your teammates maybe didn’t know exactly what to do or where to go. This is the kind of leadership that each one of you can practice, whether you’re an upperclassman, captain, or a little baby freshman. The world (and MVTF) is better when we all chip in, especially when it’s not our job to! More on that in this very sophisticated research paper…
More photos:
Our Medal Winners
Top 6 in individual events and top 4 in relays earned medals at this meet, and Monta Vista brought home plenty of hardware! Before I dive into all of our medalists, it’s worth mentioning that our performance as athletes is not necessarily defined by whatever awards we may win from them. I think medals are awesome – it puts a smile on my face to see kids wearing them proudly at meets and hearing them clink and clank around. What I think is even more awesome is when a kid, at any level, jumps up and down with pure joy because they improved on their personal best, and their friends and teammates are jumping with them in support. We can, and should, celebrate every “win” for ourselves and for our teammates!
Let’s take a look at our medal winners on the girls’ side:
- Allie Rummelhoff earned the girls’ sole gold medal, out throwing all of the competition in the varsity girls’ shot put with a PR of 35′ 10.5″!
- Rummelhoff also grabbed a 2nd place finish in the varsity girls’ discus throw
- Lelani Laruelle snagged a 3rd place medal in the varsity girls’ long jump
- Zoe Laruelle earned a 5th place in the varsity girl’s triple jump
- Ritika Sane earned a 4th place finish in the frosh-soph girls’ shot put
- The frosh-soph girls 4x800m relay team of Sophia Li, Kaitlyn Lum, Myra Mishra, and Vishakha Shastri earned 4th place
- The frosh-soph girls 4x400m relay team of Shastri, Mishra, Li, and Alex Perrault also earned a 4th place
Now for the boys:
- Ryan Shen won the varsity boys’ long jump with a new meet and stadium record of 22′ 6.5″!
- Shen also took second in the varsity boys’ high jump
- Kingston Jourdan earned a 3rd place medal in the varsity boys’ shot put, with a new PR of 44′ 5.5″!
- Eddie Fan grabbed 3rd in the varsity boys’ discus throw
- Agasthya Kothuri earned a 6th place in the varsity boy’s triple jump
- Riu Yamada won the frosh-soph boys’ 800m with a PR of 2:06.39!
- Constantine Chua won the frosh-soph boys’ 300m hurdles with a new meet and stadium record and PR of 43.64!
- The frosh-soph boys’ 4x800m relay team of Tarun Gandhi, Ritik Shenoy, Sam Heinonen, and Yamada placed 1st with a new F/S meet and stadium record of 8:45.67!
- The frosh-soph boys’ 4x400m relay team of Aaryan Samanta, Chua, Yamada, and Jeffrey Choy placed 1st with a new F/S meet and stadium record of 3:39.86!
- Chua also finished 2nd in the frosh-soph boys’ 65m hurdles
- Gandhi placed 2nd in the frosh-soph boys’ 800m
- The frosh-soph boys’ 4x100m relay team of Evan Chen, Yibo Wang, Chua, and Choy placed 2nd
- Choy placed 3rd in the frosh-soph boys’ 400m with a PR of 54.59!
- The frosh-soph boys’ 4x200m relay team of Chen, Wang, Chua, and Choy placed 4th
- Heinonen earned a 5th place finish in the frosh-soph boys’ 800m
- Misha Bakhtin earned his first medal with a 5th place finish in the frosh-soph boys’ long jump
Honoring Coach Flatow
Coach Flatow started the RustBuster Invitational 10 years ago as a way to get the Bay Area high school track season off to a great start. The purpose of this meet has always been to start things off on the right foot with a well-run, high quality competition. But the other, perhaps lesser known, meaning behind this meet was to open up the doors a bit more to athletes who may not be able to go and compete at over invitationals later in the year. We do not have qualification restrictions and often allow coaches to exceed the number restrictions for each event so that more kids have the chance to compete. I know that this is important to Coach Flatow – I’ve talked to him about this a lot! Giving you kids the opportunity to have a high quality experience in athletics is something that we think you all deserve, not because you’re all super fast and super strong and super athletic, but because you’re super great kids who we want to become super great adults. So why not give you the best experience possible and create environments where everyone is welcome?? Hopefully, if you’ve attended or competed at multiple RustBusters, that is the experience that you’ve had! THANK YOU Coach Flatow, for beginning such a wonderful tradition!
Next up, Wilcox Dual Meet!
We will face Wilcox at home on Wednesday, March 11th at 4pm. You are not released early from school, so you need to make sure to get yourselves out to track ASAP after the last bell. For those that don’t have a 6th period, please get to the track by 2:45pm and help out with any setup that may still be needed. Let’s have a great meet! Meet sheet post here: https://www.mvrunning.com/announcement/2026-wilcox-dual-meet-sheet/
35 PRs in total!
13 Girls’ PRs!
- Sofia Grigolia – 100m
- Nishi Doshi – 100m
- Vishakha Shastri – 800m
- Myra Mishra – 800m
- Allie Rummelhoff – Shot Put
- Allie Rummelhoff – Discus Throw
- Alex Sharma – Discus Throw
- Ashley Ten – Discus Throw
- Evie Hufnagel – High Jump
- Noemi Condon – High Jump
- Allie Rummelhoff – Long Jump
- Ashley Ten – Long Jump
- Ellie Kong – Triple Jump
22 Boys’ PRs!
- Jake Tong – 100m
- Yibo Wang – 100m
- Kento Murase – 400m
- Jeffrey Choy – 400m
- Leo Jayasena – 400m
- Ethan Yang – 800m
- Riu Yamada – 800m
- Tarun Gandhi – 800m
- Sam Heinonen – 800m
- Ritik Shenoy – 800m
- Kavyansh Kumawat – 800m
- Brandon Wang – 1600m
- Aiden White – 1600m
- Darin Young – 1600m
- Aric Obaidur – 1600m
- Akshat Ambekar – 3200m
- Soma Pujara – 3200m
- Jimin Park – 3200m
- Constantine Chua – 300m hurdles (F/S Stadium and Meet record!!)
- Kingston Jourdan – Shot Put
- Yibo Wang – Long Jump
- Adam Yang – Triple Jump