Links:
Complete Meet Results
Monta Vista Photos
SCVAL Meet Photos
Year End Banquet Sign Up
The Santa Clara Valley Athletic League (SCVAL) Championship Meet is a wonderful event. It is a tight, compact, exciting event–three hours from first gun to last finish. The meet is very high quality, with the top athletes from all 14 SCVAL schools; the competitiveness of the SCVAL championships compares favorably with some state meets*. Yet because SCVAL includes 16 athletes per event in the championship, there is significant representation from the schools with deep programs–such as Monta Vista. (The SCVAL meet qualifies 16 athletes in each event to the championship, based upon the results in the El Camino League championships and the De Anza League championships that took place in the prior week.)
Monta Vista had athletes in every event contested (not necessarily every heat or gender, but Monta Vista qualified an athlete to compete in every single event!). This list includes the pole vault, where for the first time in more than a decade, Monta Vista has an entrant. And Zoe Wang is not just an entrant–Zoe Wang got the meet started by vaulting 9’0″ and winning a championship for Monta Vista along with a school record! Many fans had not even arrived in the stadium, and MVTF had a SCVAL champion.
After Zoe got us started, Monta Vista was competing fast and furiously. In the 4x100m relay, the girls’ team of Evelyn How, Brooke Young, Vivian Cheng and Bianca Young joined Zoe as CCS Championship qualifiers with a third place finish. The boys’ relay team of Pranav Pata, Manu Kondapaneni, Khang Pham and Vishal Koppuru had a season best time of 46.09–a great way to end our year. Andrew Richardson had a personal record 4:40.18 in the 1600m–an agonizing amount of time as Andrew just missed getting into the 30s. That barrier is doing down next year! Sean Chen finished his season with a 17.64 PR in the 110 hurdles with Conner Hsu right with him, and Zoe added a season best in the 100m hurdles to her pole vault record. Bianca took a third place in the 400m to become MVTF’s second CCS individual qualifier on the day, while Vivian Cheng had a 64.67 PR and Reema, Vishal and Arnav Raut all ran strong races.
University of San Francisco-bound senior Evelyn How won Monta Vista’s second championship of the day with a 12.45, and Brooke ran 12.51 to give Monta Vista (aka Speed City West) a 1-2 finish in the premier sprint event. The sprinters are clearly peaking at the right time! After Jannah Sheriff and Anjali Thontakudi had nice 800m runs, Sean, Conner, Zoe and Alisha Gao gave Monta Vista solid representation in the championship hurdles. As often happens, Monta Vista put a lot of hurdlers on the track–only one of the 14 schools in SCVAL had more hurdlers qualify for the championships than Monta Vista did! Year after year, Coach Ray develops a deep hurdle squad that is one of the top groups anywhere. The sprinters hammered the 200m again, as Brooke scored Monta Vista’s third championship of the day and Evelyn had a 25.95 season best for a third place finish.
The girls’ 3200m lined up with four of the sixteen starters–a full 25% of the qualifiers–from Monta Vista. Senior Sanjana Borle, Junior Triya Roy, Sophomore Sylvana Northrop and Freshman Vivian Lau all toed the line in Monta Vista purple–almost a complete cross country team–while only one other team even had two girls qualify for the 3200m. The season is not done for Sylvana, as Syl’s 11:21 PR punches her ticket to the CCS championships. Right after that performance, Rohun Agrawal’s clinical race and a 9:40 PR earned him his own spot in the CCS championships beginning next week. Rohun is the only sophomore boy to move on to CCS in the 3200m from SCVAL; Vivian was the only freshman girl to even qualify for the SCVAL championships in the 3200.
Meanwhile in the field events, Martin Xiao was once again a leader as he tossed a 45′-10″ PR to move on to CCS after a narrow miss in the discus. Manu’s 5′-10″ high jump and Jessica Ji’s 5’2″ leap gave Monta Vista two high jump competitors at CCS next week. Arnav and Reema added triple jumps to their busy days on the track.
As dark settled in at the track, the 4x400m relay teams got ready to give the fans a show. The girls’ team of Reema Apte, Evelyn, Brooke and Bianca turned on the jets for a school record 4:01.57, a second place finish (it took a meet record to keep them out of first place) and a trip to CCS next week. The boys faced the challenging task of qualifying for CCS from the second heat. Vishal, Derek Zheng, Andrew and Vishal went out hard and won their heat by a full second, and then had to sweat out the next race to find that yes indeed–Monta Vista’s mark stood up for a fifth place finish and Monta Vista’s final qualifier for the CCS championships!
The Monta Vista athletes all headed back to the third turn where 15 pizzas awaited, and stayed to share stories about the meet. Our season continues!–with 15 more athletes heading on to the CCS Championship meet (15 pizzas and 15 athletes???–should I have bought more pizzas??? Spooky.).
Great job, everyone!
Practice continues, not only for the athletes moving on but also is an option for anyone that wants to join us. A good workout can clear the mind after an AP test! Next week the CCS first round will be on Saturday, May 11 at Gilroy High School–we hope to see you there!
Don’t forget to RSVP for the track team banquet–athletes, friends and family are welcome–check this link for information on the banquet.
Monta Vista Athletes Qualifying for the Central Coast Section Championships
Evelyn How–100m, 200m
Brooke Young–100m, 200m
Bianca Young–400m
Sylvana Northrop–3200m
Rohun Agrawal–3200m
Evelyn How, Brooke Young, Vivian Cheng, Bianca Young–4x100mR
Reema Apte, Evelyn How, Brooke Young, Bianca Young–4x400mR
Vishal Koppuru, Derek Zheng, Andrew Richardson, Arnav Raut–4x400mR
Martin Xiao–Shot Put
Jessica Ji–High Jump
Manu Kondapaneni–High Jump
Zoe Wang–Pole Vault
*Do you it is an exaggeration to say that SCVAL athletics could compete with some states? Check out this comparison of a few events from Friday’s SCVAL championships with last year’s Idaho 4A championship meet. SCVAL vs. all of Idaho looks like a pretty good match! We hope you are proud of the league you compete in!
SCVAL Boys’ 4x100m winning time, 43.40. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 42.94
SCVAL Girls’ 4x100m winning time, 48.41. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 49.62
SCVAL Boys’ 100m winning time, 10.84. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 10.98
SCVAL Girls’ 100m winning time, 12.67. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 12.57
SCVAL Boys’ 1600m winning time, 4:23. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 4:20
SCVAL Girls’ 1600m winning time, 5:13. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 5:02
SCVAL Boys’ 3200m winning time, 9:30. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 9:36
SCVAL Girls’ 3200m winning time, 11:03. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 11:07
SCVAL Boys’ discus, 167′-02″. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 168′-03″
SCVAL Girls’ discus, 129′-03″. 2018 Idaho 4A state champion, 129′-03″ (yes, same! Not a typo 🙂 )
Monta Vista: First on the track…
…and last off the track!
