Cross country programs are made over the course of years, not only a season and certainly not in one race. However when a race day goes as well as Monta Vista at the 2025 edition of the Lagoon Valley Classic, it is hard not to get excited! This team did well, showed progress, and can be excited about both the short term and long term potential.
The Lagoon Valley Classic has been a staple of the Monta Vista early season team every since both the Earlybird and Pacific Tiger meets went away. LV is real California cross country–lots of dirt, and two named hills. Some of the strongest teams in NorCal typically open their season hear, including teams like Davis, St. Francis (Sacramento), Vacaville, and Montgomery–this year, I counted about teams across all the races. MVXC has history here, too, so we can compare ourselves to prior editions of our squad.
The first race on August 30 was the freshman boys. Monta Vista had ten boys on the line to run their first high school race. At the finish, excited fans saw two of our runners take medals—Darin Young in 26th with a 13:31 on the hilly two mile course, and Oliver Perrault only four seconds back in 28th with a 13:35. Darin and Oliver’s times are both in the top ten of all Monta Vista freshmen on that course. Also, Darin and Oliver duplicated what Riu Yamada and Tarun Gandhi did last year at Lagoon Valley–medal, and finish within five seconds of each other. The important part is what happened afterwards–Riu and Tarun have become great training partners, along with many others on the team, and for a year have been pushing and pulling and helping each other, with great results (as we shall see). What I hope Darin and Oliver, and all of us, can see is the result from any one race matters–it is fun, we have a medal, we get to see where we are. But even more important is the the opportunites we see and what we do over the next months or years. Oliver and Darin could do what Riu and Tarun did, for instance. A little further back we can see Soma Puhara, Jayden Mattekatt, and Fahad Ali finish within only a few seconds of each other with excellent career opening marks, right around where Aiden White ran last year in the top 25 all-time–Soma, Jayden, and Fahad could also team up and help each other make big jumps this season and over the next four years.
The frosh-soph girls race was next and we could not be prouder of this group. Monta Vista had 13 on the starting line, and 11 were running their first high school race. The girls went out like pros, under control, then moving up through the pack. Alexandra Qui was our first across the line with a 15:09, a time that was good for an 18th place medal. Alex’s mark is 7th on the all-time list, and is quicker than many future varsity runners put up on their first high school cross country run. Taylor Orr and Youheng Zhong were about a minute back, running close together. Taylor and Yoyo were only seconds apart as they claimed medals. Kaitlyn Lum and Eva Huang also were seconds apart to complete the scoring, as the frosh-soph girls squad earned a strong 5th place finish.
One of our highlights at Lagoon Valley was the sophomore boys’ race. Sam Heinonen and Constantine Chua went out hard and kept pushing, recording 12:28 and 12:41 marks that were good for 12th and 16th place. Sam and Constantine now own the two fastest times put up by Monta Vista boys on the Lagoon Valley two mile course! Even more impressive, they did not completely shake the other boys, as Ashwanth Sundaramoothi and Ritik Shenoy were only about a half minute off that pace, claiming medals along with newcomer Akshat Ambekar. We have heard that Akshat has been a part of MV summer running for the last few months, helping lead to his strong first effort. These five runners racked up only 90 points good for an impressive third place finish behind only Vacaville and Davis high schools.
Monta Vista’s next three races highlighted the possibilities in front of us. While Monta Vista did not have full varsity teams, the individuals we entered cruised, with medals for Naomi Hsu, Kento Murase, Riu, and Tarun. None of these athletes are seniors! Imagine what all these runners can together over this season…and the next…and the next.
The talents we are blessed with are one thing; what we do with those talents is quite another thing. The people who find something that excites them and that they care about enough to really work at can accomplish amazing things–not just in running, even more importantly in the rest of our lives and our careers. Having a team to support you makes a difference, and MVXC is a great team for this. How do I know this? Because we improve. Of the 17 MVXC runners who ran at Lagoon Valley last year and came back again this year, 16 showed improvement. There were 11 personal records set (see the table below), highlighted by Myra Mishra who smashed her 2024 two mile time by 4 minutes and 38 seconds, Sam’s 1:49 PR on the two miler, and Kento’s 2:14 improvement on the three mile course. Naomi, Riu, Tarun, and Aidan Cushman-Kihnley all moved from the two-mile course to the three-mile course–and improved their pace while running 50% further and in the hotter part of the morning! Mel came within a couple seconds of accomplishing that same feat and that counts as improvement too.
If you find a team, or a friend group, or a class where everyone sticks together for a year or more and people are getting better all around you…I recommend you stick with that group. That group will take you far!
MVXC, the best is yet to come.
XCStats has great data analysis of the results, but for some reason the freshman boys’ has not been loaded properly; I’m working with them on that issue. In the meantime, you can see complete results posted by the timer. Chris Heinonen posted photos of all our runners here.
Next up will be a race we have not tried in more than 15 years…the Firebird, hosted by our neighbor Fremont High School, on Tuesday September 9.
Monta Vista PRs at Lagoon Valley 2025
| Course | Time | PR By | |
| Myra Mishra | 2 | 18:04 | 04:38.7 |
| Kento Murase | 3 | 17:34.2 | 02:14.6 |
| Samuel Heinonen | 2 | 12:28.3 | 01:49.5 |
| Vikram Mallya | 2 | 15:50.5 | 01:06.8 |
| Aiden White | 2 | 14:02.9 | 00:58.4 |
| Darren Hsu | 2 | 17:14.9 | 00:52.6 |
| Medha Rustagi | 2 | 18:19.6 | 00:47.7 |
| Ashwanth Sundaramoorthi | 2 | 13:07.6 | 00:39.7 |
| Constantine Chua | 2 | 12:40.9 | 00:31.3 |
| Yibo Wang | 2 | 15:23.2 | 00:23.1 |
| Abhi Kotari | 2 | 18:16.4 | 00:14.2 |
