On a frigid–but thankfully, dry!–Saturday, March 17, Monta Vista had a very successful day at the St. Francis Invitational.
When your coach arrived just after 7am, it was hard to believe we were going to be running a track meet–what we wanted to do was start a bonfire and stay warm! If the forecasted rain had arrived, we would had a pretty rough day hiding under our borrowed tent. Coach, Jenny and Angella set up camp in the St. Francis stands, the rain stayed away, and we got ready for a day of track.
The frosh-soph girls warmed things up first with a 3rd place finish in the DMR. As many of you know, the Distance Medley Relay is one of Coach Matt and Coach K’s favorite events…they start strategizing mock DMR teams sometime around November! And our friend Josh Cox still talks wistfully about DMRs he ran in back in his own college days. So when Bridget Gottlieb, Angella Qian, Julia Chang and Jenny Xu hit the podium with a 13:57.05 finish…well, we all smiled!
FSG DMR: Jenny Xu, Julia Chang, Bridget Gottlieb, Angella Qian
The frosh-soph boys just missed the podium, but they pulled off a rare double–when both our teams (Zach Patti, Nima Kiyarush, Rohan Choudhury and Emilio Torres-Gonzalez; and John Hsiao, Ismael Sherriff, Shanmukh Challa and Steven Lim) finished 4th and 7th, both teams scored points for Monta Vista!
Some of our Frosh-Soph DMR Boys post-race
Meanwhile, Hannah Ho was also visiting the winners’ podium, with a nail-biting second place finish in the high jump. When the girls failed to clear 4’10”, Hannah was tied for first place with a girl from St. Mary’s–which lead to a jump off to determine first. Both girls missed at 4’10”, then both girls made 4’8″. The bar was raised to 4’10”, and the other girl cleared that height. Hannah was most of the way over when a leg clipped the bar. The bar bounced around for a second, while we waited for the judge to rule–then the bar fell an instant too early! Coach: “Yes…yes….yes…yes…NOOOOOOO!” The competition was completely riveting and Hannah just barely missed a win!
Hannah Ho trying to keep warm between jumps
In the afternoon, the Varsity boys’ DMR team also climbed on to the podium with a 2nd place finish. Takuto Doshiro, Surafael Yared, Arvind Rao and Kevin Bishop ran to a 10:43.60 clocking, only 6 seconds off of the meet record (and less than that from a first place finish). Our other DMR entry, Michael Lu, Ajay Rajamani, Bumpei Maeda and Ben Chang also scored a point–another double-score from a DMR race. Great run, guys!
One of the Varsity Boys DMR teams: Arvind Rao, Surafael Yared, Takuto Doshiro, Kevin Bishop
The team pulled together for all our runners and jumpers and supported each other in the cold weather–sometimes it did feel like a survival course out there. But we survived and thrived together, in non-optimal conditions, as a team.
And yes…the photos are not as good as usual, either!
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Some of you may want your splits…Here are some of the splits we have; your coaches tried to get as many as we could as accurately as we could but there are no warranties on these figures! And addition confusion may be caused by rounding, or faulty timing math 🙂
FSG DMR:
Bridget 1200: 83-91-84=4:18
Angella 400: 67
Julia 800: 79-88=2:47
Jenny 1600: 79-87-90-84=5:40
Total 13:57
FSB DMR:
Zach 1200: 74-76-69=3:39
Nima 400: 56
Rohan 800: 70-68=2:18
Emilio 1600: 68-77-78-71=4:54
Total 11:49
John 1200: 74-78-68=4:40
Ismaeel 400: 64
Shanmukh 800: 69-76=2:25
Steven 1600: 71-82-86-80=5:19
Total 12:29
Mile (first lap is ‘long’):
Nandini: 90-96-102-92=6:25
Risako: 90-97-104-96=6:29
Kirsten: 87-91-96-90=6:05
Manali: 98-104-106-99=6:48
George: 87-85-86-80=5:28
VB DMR:
Takuto 1200: 67-68-72=3:27
Surafael 400: 53
Arvind 800: 59-64=2:03
Kevin 1600: 62-65-65-66=4:18
Michael 1200: 68-69-71=3:30
Ajay 400: 57
Bumpei 800: 60-66=2:06
Ben 1600: 69-75-?-?
Total 11:45