RustBuster! | Monta Vista Running

At about 8:00am on Saturday, March 5, 2022, it started to rain. After being 0-for 2022 so far, rain wise, Cupertino was getting damp. Of course it was RustBuster morning! It’s not RustBuster without a little rain.

But then…that was it! For the rest of the day, we had no rain and mild breezes. It was cold when the sun went behind the clouds but otherwise that the biggest problem with the weather. It was a pretty perfect Saturday in March!

And the meet…it was the biggest RustBuster ever. Sixteen schools, the most ever for a RustBuster. Eight hundred athletes were entered. And the races…

Ethan Lu scored the first medal for Monta Vista in 2022, as he placed second in the second event of the season–the frosh-soph 65m hurdles. Ethan would follow this up later with another podium finish in the 300m hurdles. Denny Dong also doubled up silver medals in the 800m and 1600m races, with fellow distance runner Tanay Parikh adding a 6th place in the frosh-soph 3200m. The frosh-soph boys 4×400 relay team also kept a set of medals for the host squad.

The senior distance girls, Vivian, Ellie and Jannah, teamed with junior Sydney Stevens to earn medals in the 4x800m relay–it’s kind of a tradition for the senior girls to have this momento of their time in MVTF/XC. Valerie Ayzenberg added an 800m individual medal. Freshman Katie Lee impressed early with a 13.89 mark in the 100m to open her high school career with a third place finish. Anika Bhandarkar and the frosh-soph girls 4x4oom team scored third place medals, while frosh-soph throwers Anika Manjesh and Michelle Zheng added a fifth and a sixth in the shot; Anika added a 4th place medal in the discus. Freshman Clara Fan got her high school track career off to a good start with a second place in the long jump to go with a third place in the high jump.

And more than the medals…after two years without an invitational, Monta Vista had a bazillion PRs, setting marks to build upon for the rest of the season!

This RustBuster rewrote the record books, too. New stadium and meet records included St. Ignatius’ Chloe Hudson’s 5’6″ high jump, Lynbrook’s Alison Tjoe’s 46.62 in the 300m hurdles, the Lynbrook girls’ sub-50 4x100m relay, and Lauren Soobrian’s 5:00.08 (!!!) as she held off Hillary Studdert’s 5:01.90 in the 1600m. Schools attending RustBuster 2022 were Santa Clara, Fremont, Milpitas, Half Moon Bay, Menlo-Atherton, Castelleja, St. Ignatius, Palo Alto, Sacred Heart Prep, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Latino College Prep, Lynbrook, Leigh, and San Lorenzo Valley along with host Monta Vista. Fremont, St. Ignatius, Lynbrook and Los Altos all won team divisional honors.

Complete results are posted at athletic.net and Hank Lawson’s Lynbrook site. Check out how RustBuster competitors rank in the Central Coast Section Top 10. There are lots of great photos taken by our own Robert Ma, Agnes Wang and Paly’s Malcolm Slaney.

Any time we can provide a good day for 800 motivated young athletes, I feel that we have accomplished something worthwhile. Especially after the last two years. It was two years ago we had the last RustBuster, and days later our school was shut down for what we thought would be a week or two of isolation. I remember the school administration coming out to the track and telling me to disperse the team. I was saying goodbye to the team and they were saying ‘see you later’ to each other. Little did I know that would be the last time I would see some of the seniors as they graduated without another track meet, or even another practice.

So, coming back and having another RustBuster, on the two year anniversary of the last RustBuster, is even more meaningful. My feelings are somewhat overwhelming. Thank you so much for helping to make this meet the best, and most meaningful, ever. I know that there are many of the 800 kids at the Monta Vista track who will never forget last Saturday. We did a good thing. Thank you athletes, parents, coaches who helped make RustBuster 2022 possible!

What a day!