MVTF Celebrates Senior Night with Full Sweep!
For the first time this 2026 season, Monta Vista Track & Field won all four divisions in dual meet competition against MacDonald High School! What a great way to celebrate our seniors and final home meet of the year. There were a lot of great performances that I will highlight later, but most of all I want to mention how special it is to be able to say goodbye or “see ya later” to a great group of young people. Senior nights are typically full of sad feelings and teary eyes, but I think our team nailed the sweet spot with being more celebratory than sad. And I know how that comes off – and no, that’s not what I mean! What I mean to say is that it’s a distinct privilege to feel sad that your friends are moving onto other things and won’t be around. Imagine if you felt indifferent or worse, delighted, that your friends were leaving. That probably means they weren’t your friends to begin with. But when you do feel sad at the thought of someone’s absence, I think that’s something to look at and feel good about actually! Because you had special moments with that person and maybe worked side-by-side to both improve in your events together. That’s special, and just because it comes to an end doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, necessarily. So celebrate your seniors, tell them how much they mean to you before they head off to college. You’ll both be happier for doing so 🙂
Girls’ Performances
For JV girls, we got things started on the track with the 4x100m relay team getting the automatic win with Ellie Kong, Sarah Kumar, Mya Vu, and Caroline Labudde, Kaitlyn Lum was second in the 1600m with Alex Perrault in third. Kong won the 100m hurdles followed by a clean sweep in the 400m with Evie Hufnagel, Kumar, and Nishi Doshi. The 800m saw another clean sweep with Lum in first, Zeynep Dogan in second, and Kumar in third. Vu was first in 100m. Kong placed second in the 300m hurdles following Hufnagel, who won the event. Labudde was third in the 200m. Taylor Orr, Sophia Li, and Medha Rustagi swept the 3200m. The 4x400m relay team of Dogan, Eva Huang, Lum, and Perrault also got the win! In the field, Ritika Sane won the shot put and got second in the discus throw. We got clean sweeps in all of the jumps with Vu, Hufnagel, and Mia DeRoche taking the high jump, Audre Chang, DeRoche, and Navya Kari cleaning the long jump, and Kong, Chang, and DeRoche for triple jump.
For Varsity, the 4x100m relay team of Allie Rummelhoff, Sofia Grigolia, Sophia Yamada, and Lelani Laruelle won to get things started on the track. Suhani Pahuja and Naomi Hsu went 1-2 in the 1600m. Vishakha Shastri came in second in the 400m followed by a 1-2 finish out of Pahuja and Mel Zhao in the 800m. Laruelle won the 300m hurdles followed by a third place finish from Lauren Moore in the 200m. Miranda Hsu and Myra Mishra went 1-2 in the 3200m and to round things out on the track, the 4x400m relay team of Shastri, Zhao, Pahuja, and Yamada took the win. In the field, Gillie Ross took first place in the shot put with Meyra Olcay in third. Rummelhoff, Olcay, and Laruelle swept the discus throw. Jasmine Zhao won the high jump with Rafaela Maglaque in third place. Rummelhoff pulled out the win in both of the horizontal jumps with Moore in third for long jump and second for triple jump. J. Zhao ended up snagging a third place in triple.
Great work, ladies!
Boys’ Performances
For the JV boys on the track, things got off to a good start with the 4x100m team of Evan Chen, Sudhanshu Bhagwat, Yibo Wang, and Carter Miller getting the win! That was followed up by a 1-3 finish in the 1600m from Aiden White and Darin Young. Han Chau got his 65m hurdle debut with an automatic win running alone (but hey, 5 points is 5 points). Arjun Rayankula, Soma Pujara, and Oliver Perrault swept the 400m followed by another sweep in the 100m by Miller, Wang, and Leo Jayasena. White and Young returned in the 800m to take first and second. In the 200m, Wang and Rayankula took first and second. Clean sweep again in the 3200m by Ritik Shenoy, Akshat Ambekar, and Sihoon Lee. The 4x400m relay team of Pujara, Ambekar, Aric Obaidur, and Chen ended things on the track with a win. In the field, Booker Volrath won the shot put and discus throw. Jayasena won the high jump and got second in both the long and triple jump events. Chau completed his hat trick of wins on the day with first places finishes in the long and triple jumps. Adam Yang got a pair of third place finishes in the long and triple jumps to round things out.
For Varsity boys on the track, the 4x100m relay team of Max Shaykin, Jeffrey Choy, Jake Tong, and Jayden Tang got things started with a first place finish. Sam Heinonen and Ethan Yang went 2-3 in the 1600m followed by a 1-2 finish from Alex Frefel and Constantine Chua in the 110m hurdles. We swept the 400m with Ivan Shliakhov, Jonah Chang, and Kento Murase. We also swept the 100m with Shaykin, Ryan Shen, and Choy! Heinonen came back in the 800m to take the win. The hurdle duo of Chua and Frefel went 1-2 in the 300m hurdles followed by Yang in third. Choy, Shaykin, and Shliakhov sweeping the 200m. Tarun Gandhi, Riu Yamada, and Yang swept the 3200m to end an almost perfect day for our boys in the distance events. The 4x400m relay team took the final win on the track with a team of Aaryan Samanta, Chua, Yamada, and Choy. In the field, Kingston Jourdan continues his streak in the shot put with another win with Eddie Fan in second place. Fan came back in the discus throw to take the top spot. Shen, per usual, won all three jumps. Adarsh Inampudi took third in the high jump and second in the triple jump. Dayo Davies grabbed a third place in the long jump.
Great work, gentlemen!
40 Total PRs!
14 Girls PRs!
- Suhani Pahuja – 800m
- Melinda Zhao – 800m
- Naomi Hsu – 800m
- Zeynep Dogan – 800m
- Sarah Kumar – 800m
- Suhani Pahuja – 1600m
- Naomi Hsu – 1600m
- Kaitlyn Lum – 1600m
- Myra Mishra – 3200m
- Ellie Kong – 300m H
- Alex Sharma – Shot Put
- Meyra Olcay – Discus Throw
- Jasmine Zhao – High Jump
- Mia DeRoche – High Jump
26 Boys PRs!
- Aditya Krishna – 100m
- Yibo Wang – 200m
- Arjun Rayankula – 200m
- Kento Murase – 400m
- Arjun Rayankula – 400m
- Soma Pujara – 400m
- Sam Heinonen – 800m
- Aiden White – 800m
- Darin Young – 800m
- Soma Pujara – 800m
- Leon Zhu – 800m
- Darin Young – 1600m
- Oliver Perrault – 1600m
- Soma Pujara – 1600m
- Leon Zhu – 1600m
- Tarun Gandhi – 3200m
- Brandon Wang – 3200m
- Ritik Shenoy – 3200m
- Sihoon Lee – 3200m
- Aric Obaidur – 3200m
- Kavyansh Kumawat – 3200m
- Bryson Hadfield – 3200m
- Booker Volrath – Discus Throw
- Adarsh Inampudi – High Jump
- Leo Jayasena – Long Jump
- Michael Zhilinsky – Triple Jump