On Friday night, May 6, Santa Clara High School hosted the SCVAL Qualifier meet under the lights, and Monta Vista advanced three athletes to the Central Coast Section Championships!
Freshman Clara Fan continued her outstanding season. For the second meet in a row, Clara cleared 5’4″ in the high jump; Clara came to Monta Vista with a 4’6″ middle school personal record and started the season with a 4’4″ clearance at RustBuster. Clara’s 5’4″ mark tied her for the highest clearance in SCVAL! (Also, a note…many of you know that coach is a big fan of the Johns Hopkins University track team…Clara would have been Hop’s top jumper this year–in college! That’s amazing.)
Sophomore Alice Ross tossed the discus 104’8″, her first time over 100′ and a PR by more than a foot, to take 4th place and advance to CCS. Alice was only 4″ from second place! Alice has added almost 15 feet to her best throw from last year, and is looking for more next week in Gilroy.
Senior Sotirios Kougiouris is not ready to end his high school track career, continuing to CCS in both hurdle events. In the 110m hurdles, Soti notched a 15.57 personal best (with a gale at his back, but let’s not dwell on that!) to take 5th place in SCVAL. Soti’s 41.16 in the 300m hurdles was a mere 0.02 seconds off his PR and was good for second place. Soti is UC-Santa Cruz bound but can put off thinking about college track as he prepares for the CCS semi-finals next Saturday.
While heat sheets are not out yet, we do have a schedule for Saturday. The CCS Semi-Finals will be held at Gilroy High School. Alice will be throwing the discus at 10:00am, while Clara will be competing in girls’ high jump, which will start at 10:10am. Soti’s 110m hurdles heat is scheduled for 12:40pm, and the 300m hurdles at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
Also on Friday night, Junior Yvonne Chen competed in both hurdle events, notching a PR in the 100m hurdles. Sophomore Ethan Chen was in the top hurdle heat with Soti in both distances; he was the highest placing sophomore in both races, and will look to come back next season and continue the tradition of hurdling success. Oregon-bound Senior Jacob Kunnakunni had a PR 102’8″ in the discus as he finished his high school track career. Seniors Vivian Lau (3200m), Sophia Chen (high jump and 300m hurdles), Anoushka Lackshmi (discus) and Olivia Tsui (shot) had their last competitions as high school athletes, while Hayden Selvakumar (400m), Alex Nguyen (3200m), Austin Hwang (who made the SCVAL finals in high jump in his first track season), Valerie Ayzenberg (400m), Sydney Stevens (800m), Nikhita Saldi (1600m), Lavinia Lei (shot and discus), and Joey Suresh (triple jump) will all look to build on successful 2022 campaigns–and aim for CCS berths in 2023! Sound good?!?!
Complete results for the SCVAL Championships are posted. The schedule for CCS Semis and Finals is also posted, and heat sheets will be up later this week.
Mr. Ma has posted some great SCVAL Championship photos–thank you so much!
See you all at the banquet, practice or at CCS!
